Over the years I’ve posted quite a few video tutorials on here and on other sites.  The problem is that they were scattered all over — many on here, quite a few on Google Earth Blog, various ones on my Google+ account, etc.  Recently I set out to get all of those organized, and the result seems to be pretty good.

With the help of Ali Green, we’ve put together a new site called A Brighter Web.  On the site we have over 60 video tutorials on topics such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and WordPress.  We’re adding a few new videos every day, and we’ll be expanding our range of topics over time.

With that in mind, what would you like to see on a site like that?  More social platforms, like FourSquare and LinkedIn?  Or perhaps software tutorials, like Photoshop?  Leave a comment and let us know what you’d like to see, and we’ll certainly take your ideas into consideration moving foward.

Thanks!

Working toward A Brighter Web is a post from: MickMel

It’s been a little over a week since I joined Google+, so I thought I’d share some of my thoughts about it.

Addictive – for now

Thus far, I’ve found it quite addictive.  The fact that 90% of the people I follow on Twitter are already over there means that my Twitter usage has dropped quite a lot.  However, only about 15% of my Facebook friends are on it, so it’s got some work to do in that regard.

That being said, I won’t be giving up Facebook or Twitter anytime soon…

Privacy is top notch

Google has had issues with privacy in the past, but they’ve certainly learned from their mistakes. The privacy settings in Google+ are easy to use, quite powerful, and default to “don’t share much”.  Kind of the opposite of Facebook.

“Hangouts” are amazing

Hangouts are the group video chat feature, for up to 10 people at once.  They work amazingly well, and I’ve met some really cool people through them.  In the future, I think they will be a great venue for business meetings, Bible studies, small groups, book clubs, etc.  Really, anything that typically has 5-10 people meeting in person could be done quite well via a Hangout.

“Circles” are simple, but potentially confusing

The idea of putting your friends into Circles is quite simple, and works very well.  Drag Steve in “friends”, drag Heather into “family”, etc.  The problem is that the content from circles come from people, not topics.  For example, I might add 20 Google Earth geeks to a “Google Earth” circle, but then I’ll see virtually all of their posts; relatively few of which are likely to be about Google Earth.

“Sparks” are weak

The idea behind Sparks is pretty cool — a quick way to follow a topic you love and share relevant news with your friends.  However, the items shown are kind of random and can be somewhat dated and spammy.  I expect to see some good updates from Google in here soon.

Google Chrome Plugins

If you use Google Chrome as your browser, there are a lot of great plug-ins to help make Google+ even better.  Here is a full list of them, but two of my favorites are:

• Replies and more: lots of great tweaks, including a quick “reply” button while you’re in comments.
• Comment Toggle: Hides all comments in the stream, but you can toggle them open/closed with one click.

Businesses

Right now, there is very little business use for it.  As a freelancer I can make some use of it, but no “non-human entities” are allowed on there yet.  No websites, no car dealers, nothing.  It’s kind of nice, but it’ll be changing soon.  Google has promised some great stuff when those features finally come out, so I hope they’re right.

It’ll be hard to avoid

Google has said that many of the Google+ features (Circles, etc) will be making their way into virtually every Google product.  This will make use of those sites more enjoyable for g+ users (quickly share a YouTube video to a specific circle), and it’ll make it harder to avoid the service for everyone else.

Plus, that silly notification icon already has me jumping to click it every time it lights up, and it’s on the top of almost every Google product.  I feel like Dug from “Up” every time it I see a number in that red box.

I hope for some customization to that in the near future (I don’t need a notification for every “+1″ on a post of mine), but it’s still quite handy.  Better yet, it creates a drop-down menu from wherever you are, so you can deal with it right there (answer the comment, etc) without ever having to visit the Google+ site.  That’s gold.

So…how’s it gonna do?

This is the big question, and I really don’t know.  I love it so far, but it’s early.  I think it’ll be a player in the social game, but it won’t be replacing Twitter or Facebook for at least a few years.  Given Google’s huge audience, vast integration with other Google products, and their willingness to spend money to make it right, Google+ isn’t going anywhere.

If you own a business, or otherwise need social media to help succeed, dive in now.  At some point, you’ll likely want to get your business involved with Google+, so get started today and start learning the ropes. Contact me if you need an invite, then connect with me on g+.

If you’re a social media butterfly, but have no real need for it, give it a shot.  It’s likely to keep growing, so now’s a good time to jump in, start making connections, organize your Circles, etc.

If you’re just a casual social media user, it’s up to you.  If you already use Google products like Gmail and Android, you’ll be amazed at how well it blends into your lifestyle.  If not, then just keep enjoying life on Facebook and keep your ears out for more on Google+.

What do you think?

Have you tried Google+ yet?  Think it has a chance to succeed?

A week of Google+ is a post from: MickMel

Three years ago I wrote up a list of my favorite plug-ins, and decided that it was well past time to give the list a fresh look.  While many of them have stayed the same, I’ve got a few additions and a few deletions.

The ones that stayed the same

These plug-ins have certainly been updated in the past few years, but remain part of every blog I manage:

Akismet – Amazingly awesome spam fighting plugin.

FeedBurner Feedsmith – I still run all of my blog RSS feeds through FeedBurner, and this is a great plug-in to quietly redirect visitors over there.

Google XML Sitemaps – A simple way to generate an XML sitemap and automatically notify search engines of your new posts.

Highlight Author Comments – Make your replies stand out when you reply to comments on a post of yours.

Subscribe to Comments – Allow users to get email notifications of new posts after they leave one.  I love when blogs have this, so I can be notified if someone replies to my comment and then we can continue the conversation.

The ones that I’ve moved away from

Here are the plug-ins that I no longer use regularly, for one reason or another:

All in One SEO Pack -Most of the themes that I use (typically from StudioPress) have great SEO baked right in and this is less important.

Enhanced WP Contact Form – I’ve switched to Wufoo for virtually all of my forms.

Fancy Zoom – I still use it from time to time, but most themes have better image management.

Top Commentators – This isn’t really a bad plug-in, I simply don’t use it any more.

Sociable – I’ve removed this in favor of Twitter and Facebook-specific plug-ins, shown below.

Twitter Tools – I now use dlvr.it to handle this instead, but I use it rather sparingly; be fresh on Twitter, not automated!

WordPress.com Stats – Still a great plugin, and I use it on a few blogs, but I primarily rely on Google Analytics.

The new additions!

I’ve dropped some plug-ins, but also added some new ones over the past few years such as:

Canonical URL’s – A very simple plug-in to add the canonical tag to your pages.  Not overly helpful in many cases, but can be excellent for your SEO sometimes.  (What is the canonical tag?)

PuSHPress – This enabled PuSubHubbub support for your blog. In short, it makes sure that RSS readers and others will get your posts instantly, rather than the next time they check in a few hours.  (more about the PuSHPress plugin)

RSS Footer – This adds a line of text (with a few links) the bottom of each post in your RSS feed.  The basic idea is that if someone is scraping your site and posting it as their own, you’ll at least still get some free links back to your site!

Twitter Button for WordPress – A simple way to add a “tweet” button to your posts.

WP FB Like Button – A simple way to add a Facebook “like” button to your posts.

WPtouch – A great plug-in that creates a mobile version of your site and automatically serves it to mobile phones when they connect.

You?

What about you?  Any other killer plugins that I’m missing from the list?

My favorite WordPress plug-ins is a post from: MickMel

Below are three of my favorite videos of all time.  They’re all quite long (averaging just under an hour each), but I re-watch all of them from time to time to stay fresh on the ideas presented in them.

Scott Stratten: The Biz Media Sessions
Scott (@unmarketing) puts out a bunch of great info on how to use  social media, and this video is a great overview of some of his ideas.

David Allen: Getting Things Done
I’m a big fan of GTD, and it’s greatly changed how I’ve organized my life over the past few years.  David Allen is the man behind the system, and this was a talk he gave at Google a few years ago.  Lots of great tips in there.

Merlin Mann: Inbox Zero
A major aspect of GTD, at least for me, is keeping my inbox completely clean.  Merlin offers some great advice in this video on how to actually make it happen.

Any other great videos out there that should be on this list?

Three videos that you must watch is a post from: MickMel

I’m down in Fort Morgan, AL this week for a little vacation with the family, and I’m shocked at how lazy the realtors are around here.  Like most beachfront communities, most of the homes are either for sale or rent, yet many of the sale/rent signs are broken, every “take info” box is empty, and I’ve only seen one house that has a unique URL on it.  90% have no web link, and the rest simply link back to the main site for that company.  QR codes aren’t even being considered.  If you’re a hard worker and want to live at the beach, move down here — you’d be a hero!

For a wider look at the Real Estate industry, check out the infographic below, created by Mashable. It illustrates some very interesting numbers regarding how the Real Estate industry is using social media.

A few things that jumped out at me:

• 84% of real estate professionals are now using social media.  That’s it? I would have expected that number to be in the mid-90′s.  Granted, many aren’t using it effectively, but that 84% includes those people.  16% apparently aren’t doing anything with social media yet.
• 73% of homeowners are more likely to list with a realtor that is willing to do video, but only 12% of the real estate industry current has a YouTube account.
• The real estate industry uses Facebook more than other small businesses, but they’re way behind in Twitter usage.

Anyhow, check out the infographic below.  Anything else jump out at you?

Great stats on Social Media usage by the Real Estate industry is a post from: MickMel

Odds are, you’re reading this text on an LCD screen of some kind — a monitor, laptop, iPad, cell phone, etc.  How do those amazing screens work?  Bill Hammack, “TheEngineerGuy” just put out this short video to show how it works.  It’s amazingly complex technology, but he breaks it down and makes it fairly easy to understand.

As he says, it’s hard to imagine life without these screens. Even with tiny devices like we’re used to, they’d be incredibly bulky if you couldn’t put a lightweight screen on them.

The people that developed this kind of technology are shockingly smart!

Cool video with a simple breakdown of how LCD screens work is a post from: MickMel

Here’s a cool video from Corning showing what the future could hold.  We’ll start seeing things like this very soon, and the potential is quite exciting!

I’ve thought for a while now that it’d be cool to have windows like the sunroof in her car, where you can cover it up by simply having the display turn black.  It’ll be interesting to see which concepts from the video end up in our daily lives in the next 10 years.

(via Michael Hyatt)

A Day Made of Glass is a post from: MickMel

I did this a while back on the Droid X, but I just realized it would probably work on the Xoom — and it does!

You can play any of your old NES games on the Xoom (or any other android phone/tablet, probably), using the Wii remote to control them.  There are two apps required to make this happen:

1 – Wiimote Controller: This is a free app that connects your Wii Remote to your Android device via Bluetooth. You can find it in the market here for free.

2 – NESoid: This is the app that actually runs the games.  You’ll need to find and load your own NES rom files, though.  It has a lite version available for free, or a paid version for just $3.98.

Here’s a quick video of it in action:

In the video I mentioned the HDMI output from the Xoom, which you can read more about here.

There are other emulators you can get (Super Nintendo, Genesis, etc), but the Wii Remote works perfectly with NES games because of the button layout, and I simply prefer those games anyhow.

If you have any kind of Android device and a Wii Remote, give it a try!

Playing Nintendo games on the Xoom using a Wii remote is a post from: MickMel

While I’m still a big fan of Google Chrome, Firefox 4 came out today and has some nice improvements.

The first is speed.  Chrome still is a faster browser, but Firefox is now much closer behind.  If you’re a big fan of Firefox, you’ll notice quite an improvement in speed.

It also has some nifty features like “panorama”, shown here:

You can download Firefox 4 here.

What is your favorite browser?

Firefox 4 released; much faster, some new features is a post from: MickMel

Romania has a very high rate of phone theft, but most people “don’t think it could happen to them” (of course).

To counter that, Vodafone hired professional pickpockets to quietly slip promotional flyers into the pockets, bags and purses of people on the street, to show how easily their phone could have been stolen.  Very creative, and quite brilliant!

Professional pickpockets as marketers is a post from: MickMel