1. | Darwin Awards: The Stupidest Ways People Die

2. | The History of CES

3. | Apple to Apples

4. | Everything You Need to Know About Facebook’s IPO

5. | Mulittasking: This is Your Brain on Media

To follow last years best infographics of 2010, we have put together a few of our favorites from 2011.

1. | The Royal Wedding’s Social Impact

2. | Tech Germs

3. | What Does it Take to Get a Job at Google?

4. | Twacked: When Good Twitter Accounts Go Bad

5. | Inside 5 of America’s Largest Data Centers

6. | Global Internet Traffic

7. | Facebook vs. Google

8. | The Top 20 Most Expensive Keywords

10. | The Tale of the New Year’s Fail

NowStreaming is our new collection of videos that we have created to help others learn the various aspects of Internet marketing. Stay tuned to our blog for more NowStreaming videos on everything from infographics to rage comics. To view all of our videos, head to the NowSourcing YouTube Channel.

NowStreaming is our new collection of videos that we have created to help others learn the various aspects of Internet marketing. Stay tuned to our blog for more NowStreaming videos on everything from infographics to rage comics. To view all of our videos, head to the NowSourcing YouTube Channel.

In this NowStreaming video, Brian gives his presentation on the rising popularity of infographics. Viewers of this video will learn what an infographic is, what it should not be, and why infographics have become an important addition to internet marketing. Brian also discusses two of the many successful infographics produced by NowSourcing that have generated an abundance of traffic for our clients. If you’re interested in having NowSourcing create an infographic, head over to the infographic page on our site and let us know.

In this NowStreaming video, Jay shares his knowledge on the social platform Twitter.  This basic introduction covers topics such as how Twitter has changed, the difference between replies and mentions, dos and don’t, and several tips for getting the most out of your tweets.  While this video may be most helpful for twitter newbies, those who have used the service before may also learn a thing or two.  For more tips on using Twitter, you can check out 10 Ways to Make Your Tweets Stand Out.

1. A Guide To UX Careers

Throughout the life of this blog, we’ve given you lists on a variety of topics.  From the top 10 technology infographics, to 10 reasons people aren’t commenting on your blog, and even 10 ways to change the world through social media, these lists provide quick and useful information that we think will make you a better Internet user.  We’ve also created a list on 10 Twitter ranking sites, but never have we given you the top 10 ways to get your tweets noticed.  So, here it is.  Below you will find what we believe are 10 of the most useful tips to get your followers to see and interact with your tweets.  The key to this list is not to pick one and do it, but to use it as a guide to shape every tweet you publish.  For the next few days, reference this list and try to follow the tips when writing your tweets.  After awhile, you should have a pretty good grasp on which tweets will get noticed and which ones will mix into the crowd.  Let us know in the comments below if you have more tips, or if after using the list you’ve noticed a difference in your follower’s interactions.

1.  Be Original

When most people find an article they want to share with their followers, they copy the title of the article and paste it into the tweet.  While this gives your followers an idea of what the article is, it’s bland and will mix in with all of the other tweets in their timeline.  Try coming up with your own creative title for the article.  This way if the article is popular, your tweet won’t be the same as everyone else who has also tweeted the same article.

2.  Be Short

Twitter limits the length of tweets so you can provide useful information in a way that is easy to read.  While 140 characters may already seem short, make your tweets around 120 characters if you can.  This ensures that there is enough room for others to retweet (the classic way) and include any opinions or thoughts they have on the subject.

3.  Tweet Like You Are Writing A Headline

Along with being short, your tweets should be straight to the point.  Imagine your tweet is a newspaper headline and your goal is to get a person to read the story.  You need to make the headline catchy and easy to read, while still grabbing the reader’s attention and hopefully luring them into the article.  Treat tweets the same way, grabbing a follower’s attention and getting them to either reply or click on an included link.

4.  Offer Interesting Statistics

People like to be shocked with interesting facts and statistics.  If a follower reads something they can’t believe, they’ll be inclined to click the link and look into it more.  Going back to the very first tip of being original, use an interesting statistic instead of the title of an article as the body of your tweet.

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5.  Be Real

Twitter, and social media in general, is about connecting people and sharing interesting things.  Nobody wants to talk to a robot because it has no real thoughts or emotions.  Use your own voice to tweet and make it personal.  If you feel you must schedule tweets ahead of time, be sure to check and respond to any replies you get.  In addition, show your followers you appreciate them by replying and retweeting them as well.

6.  Time Your Tweets

Time your tweets doesn’t mean you should time them to publish every half hour.  It means you should know when your followers are most active and when you should be most active as well.  If you get the most replies, retweets, and updates in the middle of the day, then you should be on Twitter interacting and tweeting during those times as well.  The eastern time zone is the most populated time zone in the U.S., therefore it would also be wise to time your tweets when those people are most likely to see it.

7.  Focus and Provide Value

People use Twitter for various reasons, whether it’s to learn about marketing or to learn about teddy bears doesn’t really matter.  Find your reason for using Twitter, and stick to tweeting mostly about that subject.  By focusing on one or two subjects, people will see you as being a valuable contributor who they can learn from.

8.  Be Engaging

You shouldn’t focus on just growing the number of followers you have, you should rather focus on getting your followers to interact and discuss what you tweet.  Ask your followers questions to get them taking and giving ideas, but also remember to respond to their questions too.  If you do have a large following, asking for a good restaurant recommendation in a foreign city is always a bonus!

9.  Include Links

Unless it’s the score of a game or an update to something ongoing, 140 characters isn’t usually enough to provide much information.  You should use the space to attract people and lead them to your site or to an article that expands the brief information displayed in the tweet.  Twitter is a gateway to limitless information, not so much a place to learn directly from.

10.  Provoke Thought

Going along with being original and offering interesting statistics, your tweets should leave your followers questioning and wanting to learn more.  A tweet that creates no ideas is going to be read and passed along without further thought.  A tweet that makes a follower think will have a better chance of being retweeted or replied to, exposing you to a greater pool of potential followers.

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I have been using the new Google + (G+) for the last two weeks or so and while I enjoy it, it still has not taken the place of my true social network, Facebook. Granted, G+ is still in the works and I have not fully taken advantage of all the features – I still have not fallen head over heels, nor do I think I will. When I first heard through the grapevine that there was a new social network on the block I was intrigued, and when I took the G+ tour, I really believed that Facebook may go the way of Myspace – but now that I have it and have the features, I’m kind of wondering what I need this for. For instance: whenever I hear something cool through G+, my first thought is to run and share it with Facebook, that can’t be right.

Facebook gives me everything I want and more, and it continues to surprise me with amazing innovation and new ways to stay connected. With G+ I have to wait for all of my friends to get on board with it – my friends are used to Facebook. Also, the status updates are awkward and have a few flaws, it just doesn’t seem worth it.

Another thing that is funny to me, is how similar G+ is to Facebook. They have all the same bells and whistles they just call it something different. The difference is that Facebook really does seem to have more to offer me when it comes to features and I’m already really comfortable with it.  I have put together a chart of some of the similarities I’ve noticed between Facebook and G+.

G+ is great, and definitely looks better format wise than Facebook, and I am not just going to delete G+ out of my life. I still have a circle of friends through G+ and I plan to check in every now and again -  but all in all, I have a real connection with Facebook, and that is the social network for me.

In a press conference this morning Mark Zuckerberg, creator of Facebook, was asked what he thought of the possibly revolutionary launching of Google+. Zuckerberg admitted that he had used it very little but that he believed it was part of the social networking evolution. However, Google+ is also his competition, it is offering Circles, which basically allows you to label your friends and groups and choose who sees what and which group you publish content to. It also offers Hangouts, which is the video group chat, Sparks, a feed that revolves around you and only videos, articles, and offers you would be interested in, and Huddle which allows you to text as a group. Since the two networks are so similar, but one comes with more features (so far), people will eventually make a choice. There will be resistance at first just as there was when Facebook blew Myspace out of the water, but as of right now, Google+ sounds like the next step and Facebook may not have the technology to catch up.

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Google+ began a beta release for the network last month, giving only a select few people access – this gave off the impression that the network was elite, leaving those who weren’t allowed dying to see what all the fuss was about. Another blow to Facebook’s ego was the group chat offered on Google+ that clearly overshadowed Facebook’s partnership with Skype, who was recently bought by Microsoft for $8.5 billion before they were aware of Google’s innovative software.

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The reason Google+ may not take over Facebook is because despite Google’s Vice President, Vic Gundotra’s belief that they are meeting the needs of the people and their desire to connect, they are really adding a bunch of bells and whistles to a system that was already meeting this need. Also many users may not be ready for the commitment that goes along with another social network.

If Zuckerberg does come out with something innovative or finds a way to at least make group chat available before Google+ is fully launched he may have a shot. However, Zuckerberg recently said they are not focusing on the number of users so much anymore but the features, this was a little unsettling. The fact that Facebook lost around 6 million users in May, may have provoked this comment, and since Google+ is ahead in the feature department it will make a come back even more difficult. The worst thing he could do is reformat the entire network like Myspace did when they saw that Facebook was taking them over – they ended up going beyond their site’s capacity and that helped in everyone’s decision to go full Facebook. Whether or not Facebook survives the war or falls as the social media empire, social networking is evolving right before our eyes and it should be a very interesting change.

1 – Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I am Stephen Ou, I am currently working on a premium WordPress editor called Artsy Editor. I also made several web apps before including iTunes Instant, TwtRoulette, OhBoard, and OneExtraLap.

2 – You’ve accomplished some pretty visible releases at the tender age of 16. Do you feel that people don’t take you as seriously at that age, or is age but a number?
I think the age is just a number. Sure, people like to talk about age (ex. in order for blogs to attract traffic, they rather have headlines like “X years-old created Y”) and put me into a different consideration (both positively and negatively). But for me, I am just doing what I enjoy doing, and I seldom mention my age unless it’s necessary.

3 – It seems that you have a repeating pattern of looking for pain points inwell-known software (e.g. iTunes Instanthttp://mashable.com/2010/09/13/itunes-instant/ and now ArtstyEditor). What other pain points are on your mind?
Well, there are a lot that I would be like to see solved. Just a few examples:
- Domain registration and hosting setup. Right now no matter where you buy your domain and hosting, it takes a pretty long time to set it up and make sure everything is working. I’d love a way where I buy the domain in one-click and the hosting is set up for me in few seconds.

- Better ways to communicate with customers. I’d love to have FaceTime made for business. I really want a tool where I can video-chat with customers live so I can solve their requests faster and more efficiently. I want online businesses to have the same customer interaction as brick-and-mortar stores.

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4 – What made you think to create ArtsyEditor in the first place? Not thatI’m complaining, it’s a welcome edition to the otherwise clumsy WordPresseditor.
The reason I started building it was because people wanted it, and they were willing to pay for it. I went through a customer development process where I got in touch with 100+ people, and 38 of them liked my idea and were willing to pay. From those kinds of positive responses, I knew I was onto something. So why give up the chance?

5 – Any plans to approach WordPress directly to try to get this incorporated into the core? Woothemes was able to do something to that effect before withtheir menu code which is now part of the WordPress core.
Possibly. WordPress has been the most revolutionary platform I’ve ever been into. It had helped me and others create countless websites and blogs. So if there is ever a chance that I can contribute to the core, I’d love to. But of course, I have to focus on Artsy Editor and build up something awesome first so I can get their attention.

6 – I saw your beta launch email. How’s the reception to your product been so far?
It is going exceptionally well. I’ve reached profitability before launch with a pre-launch promotion I did. And after the official launch today, more folks were coming to our site and trying out our free demo. We also received few nice pieces of coverage on The Next Web and TechInch.

7 – What else should we know?
Just something I say in most interviews: If you are about to start building stuff, choose something that solves real problems.

For a 20% discount on all products from ArtsyEditor we are including a special code for our readers!

SPECIAL CODE: 20NOWSOURCING

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If you were born before 1994 you can probably remember a life without Facebook – what did we do all day? I did an experiment on myself last week to see how many times I actually check Facebook in a day. This was very difficult because I was conscious of it, but the desire to check your newsfeed or update your status does not lie. I became a little angry at myself when I reached close to 50 within the first 3 hours of my work day. That means I checked Facebook around 17 times in an hour and if I stayed on for one minute – I was on for just under an hour of the three hours. Of course my numbers are a bit higher because I work in social media, so Facebook really is a part of my job… but for the most part, I had the desire to see what was going on with my friends and to possibly update a status.

More than likely if there was no Facebook, I would have been more productive in that hour, found something else unproductive to do or been bored. Here’s the thing about this site, it is the epitome of entertainment. It offers: music, videos, funny images, disturbing images, all of your friends and enemies, and the chance to talk about yourself, and build whatever identity you want. It also is the new birthplace of drama and conflict.

It’s no secret that Facebook can make or break relationships,  however this is usually due to one’s own stupidity or sheer  jealousy, nonetheless, Facebook is a legal form of stalking, and  most of us are guilty of it. It’s just too easy. The blog,  AllFacebook published a post last year called The Utimate Guide To Facebook Breakups. It goes through the steps of how people conduct themselves on Facebook after a breakup – you are no longer friends, you need to start posting pics of yourself having fun with someone more attractive, and so on. Cyber Psychology and Behavior did a study in 2009 showing that certain information given on Facebook is given for a reason and there is a distinct connection with relationship status, religion, and status updates. It suggests that there is a psychological process to what people display and don’t display. When someone displays their religion they are seeking a mate who shares these same ideas, when someone displays that they are single, rather than opting to keep their relationship status private, they are looking for some connection through the network. They also looked at the differences in male and female profiles to see how each gender represented themselves. Males are less likely to mention their significant other on their profile page; a female’s page tends to revolve around her significant other. This explains why women tend to think it isn’t official until it’s on Facebook, and men simply do not understand this mentality.

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Facebook has allowed us to share our lives, beliefs, and problems with everyone we know and more. We create an identity online that may or may not be true but it is how we want to be seen. We also follow lives on Facebook, people we haven’t seen for years, we know everything about them and we keep saying “we need to get together”. A life without Facebook would never speak to this person or they would actually get together. I challenge everyone to make a list of people they keep up with on a regular basis solely through Facebook – would you ever speak to these people again if you did not have this outlet?

Without Facebook, people would actually have to have conversations with each other about interests, family, hobbies, what they did that day… instead they can just login to your life. A life without Facebook would be a life that actually takes effort to know anything about, and you would actually have to play tennis, not just put it as one of your activities/interests.

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When Facebook launched in February of 2004, it was not the first attempt at social networking. It did however, give social media a healthy pulse rather than a fleeting heartbeat that most referred to as a “trend.” It would appear that social media is alive and well and the outlook is good that it will see us into the future. Now that most of us have accepted this, another movement is trying to bust through the the trend barriers and take up residence in the land of the norm.

When social media meets gaming, or rather, meets a specific, interactive element of gaming – we call this virtual reality. When I was younger I always thought virtual reality was putting a boxy contraption over your head with a screen over your eyes and your physical movements controlled your movements within the virtual world. Turns out, now that the future is here, virtual reality is not physical at all, but rather, psychological and emotional. (Image Two Credit)

I recently heard about the game Second Life, well I had heard of it before but just figured it was The Sims online or something, I had no idea that for some people, it truly was a ‘second life’. The game is being used not only for social purposes but for business and even education. Jay Vasse, a recent graduate from Bradley University in Illinois and a writer for NowSourcing, actually had a class through Second Life. “I had to meet my partner in a virtual classroom, that was really just a beach shack,” says Vasse, “we would critique each other’s papers and we had to take snapshots of ourselves to prove we were really there.”

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After doing some research on the game I found that as a “resident” of Second Life, you can buy land, go shopping, go on dates, orb to other parts of town if you don’t feel like flying, and the areas are marked with a maturity rating: G (general), M (moderate), and A (adult). Now, let’s be honest, you are probably most interested in what falls under the adult rating – of course you are, this is the 21st century after all. It is pretty simple, it works just like it would in your “first life” except you don’t need a rating to know it’s a strip club. The general and moderate ratings are pretty much light fun, for instance: coffee shop would fall under G and dance club would fall under M. Another fascinating characteristic is that Second Life actually has it’s own currency, the Linden dollar (L$). You can buy L$ with your real money or you can start your own business and make a linden profit and go out and buy your avatar clothes, furniture, weapons, instruments, and anything else you can think of.

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So what would life as an avatar be like? Truly, meeting your boyfriend or girlfriend’s avatar before ever seeing their “first life” face, is that ok? Personally, I don’t think I have quite formed an opinion yet due to my state shock, but though I feel I would never want to meet someone that way, how is it different from Facebook? I have met a few friends through Facebook, and there are some whom I know only through Facebook. My job’s main form of communication is through Skype chat. So I don’t have an avatar chatting for me, and I am not going to meetings in a virtual conference room, but the virtual part is the only difference. The social interaction is pretty much the same.

According to Arnold Brown, writer for The Furturist, “Once humans begin to perceive virtual social interactions as actually having occurred, it will greatly impact individuals, relationships, communities, and society as a whole.” Brown believes that people may actually form an attachment to their avatar identity, and when one feels such a connection, brain research shows that our multisensory perception could cause even sexual interaction to be obtained through this form of media.

Many questions arise when new waves of technology threaten social interaction to the point of almost never making physical contact: Should there be restrictions on sites like these? Will people become bored with it before it becomes a serious issue? Is it a threat at all? Or is it simply a new way of meeting people and socializing? Virtual reality may be throwing the social networking generation off of it’s balance and into a whole new world of possibility and conflict.

Here’s a snippet of the interview:

Social media infographics are a great way to compress a great deal of information into a relatively small space and reading time. Let’s say your average reading time through an infographic is about 2:30 – the amount of verbiage that you’d need to convey the point otherwise would be considerably longer. That, coupled with the fact that infographics are a visual learner’s dream makes the infographics irresistible.

WordStream is a search engine marketing software company with advanced SEO and PPC tools to help make your search marketing campaigns better organized and more profitable.  You can read the interview in its entirety on WordStream’s blog.

WordStream is a provider of PPC Tools and a Free Keyword Tool.

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It’s 2:30 on a Wednesday afternoon. You step out from the back office of your business to see three of your employees standing around with nothing to do, and you wonder how much the last half hour of business has cost you without seeing a single customer walk through the door. Whether you work in a bank, a hair salon, or an all you can eat oriental buffet, there are certain times of the day that are just plain slow for businesses, and so far as most of us know, there’s very little we can do about that. Well not for long.

Right now, in a Chicago market trial, deal-of-the-day giant Groupon is testing its Groupon Now concept. Groupon Now allows businesses in the Chicago area to send special limited-time promotional offers to any nearby smartphone with the Groupon Now application. The goal: to help businesses drive traffic to their location with the ultimate in targeted promotional tools. In other words, if your business is typically slow around 2:30 on Wednesday afternoons, you will be able to offer promotions to the consumers closest to you for a one hour window between 2:00 and 3:00.

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Since it’s launch two years ago, Groupon has grown to be the world’s largest daily deals service with more than 85 million subscribers. Groupon has become a promotional powerhouse but, at least until Groupon Now, has been employing a highly imitable business model (as evidenced by the Google announcing the launch of Google Offers following Groupon’s refusal of Google’s 6 Billion dollar buyout offer). With the help of Loopt, a company based in Mountain View, California that produces mobile location-based services, Groupon was able to launch Groupon Now. The rumors are that Groupon is going partner with more location based service providers, chief among them is Foursquare.

Foursquare has been a leader among location-based mobile services since it began interacting with businesses to offer promotions to users who “check in” with certain frequencies. A partnership between Groupon and Foursquare is what many are calling the next “hugely logical step” for both companies. We don’t know when the public will see a product come of this, but it will very likely be coming soon.

While this partnership brings together so much of what businesses want from their marketing efforts, is it what consumers want from their phones? Do you want your phone blowing up with “deals” as you drive from one end of town to the other? Let us know what you think in the comments section!

The driving idea behind Social Media Informer is to bring you “The best content about social media for business.” They do this by aggregating and syndicating all kinds of blog content relating to social media. Whether it’s RSS, SEO, or analytics, Social Media Informer has potential to take off as a new hub of information. And the good news is that it looks to do so in an unobtrusive way that directs all credit back to the original source. Clicking a link or following through on something found directly on their website, Social Media Informer takes you to the blog or other resource where it was found.

There are various ways to view content. You can select the time period, and browse topics like how-to articles, products, or specific subjects such as Twitter or iPhone. Bloggers producing applicable content can try to become part of the process by designing a widget and inserting it into the blog’s code (Here’s a video for help). It’s that easy to become an official Social Media Informer, which wouldn’t sound bad on a resume.

What’s your favorite retro poster? Let me know in the comments.

1 – World Map of Social Networks

Let’s start at the 50,000 foot view, shall we?

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2 – Age Distribution on Social Network Sites

Is age distribution targeting more your thing? Pingdom put together an excellent overview by social network:

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3 – Social Media Periodic Table of Elements

As we previously reported, our friend and fellow Advertising Age Power 150 member Eyecube created another great visualization called the social media periodic table of elements:

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4 – The Conversation Prism

No social media infographic collection would be complete without Brian Solis’ Conversation Prism:

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5 – The Boom of Social Sites

Focus.com put together an outstanding visual showing both the size and timeline of social communities:

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6 – Make Social Media Work For Your Company

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7 – Hubspot Twitter Territory

Hubspot of Twitter Grader fame nailed it with a slick infographic showing how each state’s Twitter usage compares to the national average:

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8 – How Twitter Got Attacked by DDOS

If you’re a frequent Twitter user, you’ll remember the great DDOS attack as a period of social media withdrawal:

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9 – Air Force Web Posting Response Assessment V.2

While we’re on the subject of Internet security, we’d be remiss to not mention the US Air Force’s blogging assessment flowchart infographic:

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10 -Visualizing 6 Years of Facebook

We thought that the best way to round out this list would be to celebrate Facebook’s recent 6th anniversary – Muhammad Saleem put together this excellent infographic over at Mashable:

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