A couple weeks ago, WordPress team released WordPress 3.0 but I didn’t upgrade immediately because an upgrade like this will always bring along many bugs, so I waited for awhile and heard the feedback from people who upgraded to WordPress 3.0. Eventually, WordPress team had fixed all the bugs in WordPress 3.0 and released WordPress 3.0.1 on 29th July 2010. That was a brilliant upgrade as WordPress team fixed 54 bugs and most of them [...]
Twitter has begun rolling out a "Suggestions for You" feature that helps users find people to follow. You may be familiar with a similar feature on Facebook.
"With more than a hundred million users on Twitter, there are sure to be at least dozens of accounts out there that will reflect your interests. The trouble is finding all of them," the company says.
Twitter’s suggestions utilize algorithms based on factors like people you follow and the people they follow. The suggestions can be found on Twitter.com and the "Find People" section. Of course you can click "follow" to follow those Twitter suggests for you. If you’re not interested, you can click "hide" and they won’t show you that suggestion again.
Twitter is also launching a feature that shows you "similar" users when you view other people’s accounts. Both new features will be available in third-party apps, as Twitter is launching an API.
If you don’t mind a shameless plug, I might suggest just using Twellow to find people of interest by category or location. If you’re looking to find interesting people to follow, that can help big time, and you can look for people yourself rather than relying on who Twitter thinks you’d be interested in. Mashable included it in its top 20 Sites to Improve Your Twitter Experience as one of two in the discovery category.
It’s a tough question, especially in a bad economy.
The question really begs another question – what is your goal for your site?
If you are operating it as a real business where you hope to either supplement your current income or rely on it as your sole source of income – then you need to be prepared to invest in search (it’s often the foundation of your marketing and a consistent source of regular traffic).
You can invest time or money and in most cases, you usually need to invest both.
I think there is someone out there spreading some erroneous information about starting a business online.  There is a lot of the “build it and they will come” mentality – in other words throw up a site and voila insta-business!
While in many ways, it is easier to do business online because you don’t need to set up physical stores and have a lot of the issues you have with brick and mortars, it is by no means a “sure thing” – you still have to work for your success.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying you shouldn’t start an online business -  I am just saying if you expect your business to grow and treat you well, then you need to treat it like a serious business.
So, yes, it will be necessary for you to invest both time and money into generating traffic.
Most small to medium sized businesses spend between $300 – $800 per month, although I’ve also heard people say numbers a little higher, like $500 – $1500 per month is the norm.  So somewhere in that range is what you should expect to pay for quality SEO work.
It always amazes me that people are annoyed they have to pay for SEO.  People will pay for a doctor or a mechanic, or even a web designer but they seem to resent having to pay for SEO.  If you have the time and knowledge, then by all means, don’t pay anyone, do it yourself.  However if you don’t have the time or knowledge, it’s a valid, and important expense and not something you should begrudge.  Driving traffic to your site is the foundation and not the area you want to go cheap.
Facebook has put a lot of people on edge about privacy in recent months, and while some of it may be legitimate concern, a lot of the discussion is simply getting blown out of proportion.
You’ve probably read about the infamous "leaked" list of user names this week, that a security researcher shared in a torrent. A bunch of companies have reportedly been downloading the info leading to some unnecessary paranoia. Our own IT department took a look at that torrent, and there’s really nothing to get freaked out about. It just contains data that’s already public (170,879,858 URLs by our count), as the "leaker" Ron Bowes told BBC News.
The biggest file is called facebook-urls.txt. The top of the file looks like this (with "xxxxx" representing the unique number associated with the accounts):
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/-/xxxxxxx
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/-/xxxxxxxx
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/-/xxxxxxx
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/-/xxxxxxxxx
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/-/xxxxxxxxxx
Eventually, once you get past the dashes, they start looking like this (where the "xxxx" represents people’s names):
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/A-xxx-xxx-xxx/100001172054083
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/A-xxxxxx-xxxxxxxx/100000816806409
http://en-us.facebook.com/people/A-xxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx-xxx-xxxxxx/643427473
Bowes said that collecting the data was in no way irresponsible and likened it to a telephone directory. On top of that, there’s not any info to distinguish people with the same names apart from one another.
Facebook has also confirmed that the info in the list was already freely available online, and that "no private data is available or has been compromised."
Specifically, Microsoft stated, "During fiscal year 2010, we acquired five entities for total consideration of $267 million, substantially all of which was paid in cash."
Microsoft is pissed that Yahoo Japan is going with Google rather than Bing. In fact, the company is reportedly moving to block the deal from going through.
Jay Yarow at Silicon Alley Insider provides the following statement from a company rep: "We plan to present evidence to the Japanese FTC explaining why we believe that this deal is substantially more harmful to competition than Google’s deal with Yahoo in 2008 that the DOJ found to be illegal."
According to Yarow, Microsoft estimates that Google and Yahoo joining forces in Japan would give the companies 98% of the Japanese search market.
Facebook Credits are fast becoming the official currency of developers everywhere. Following recent announcements involving LOLapps, CrowdStar, RockYou, and Wooga, Playdom has also entered a deal that will see it using nothing other than Facebook Credits for the next handful of years.
Playdom is an important developer, with millions of people enjoying its apps.  By establishing a deal with it, Facebook’s ensured that a whole lot of folks will be exposed to Facebook Credits.  It’s not hard to imagine that usage will increase as a result.
The ramifications of this partnership don’t end there, either.  Since Disney acquired Playdom earlier this week, Facebook’s now officially got the largest entertainment conglomerate in the world as its pal.  That could pay off in a big way when it comes to advertising.  Or simply PR.
Anyway, if you’re curious about the terms of the deal, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed to Chris Morrison, "Facebook has entered into a five-year agreement with Playdom for the company to use Facebook Credits as the exclusive way to transact in its games on the Facebook Platform. . . .  As part of the relationship, Playdom will receive the same revenue share as other developers on Facebook."
Will it be called the BlackPad? As Mobile Crunch 
Microsoft filed its 
Playdom is an important developer, with millions of people enjoying its apps.  By establishing a deal with it, Facebook’s ensured that a whole lot of folks will be exposed to Facebook Credits.  It’s not hard to imagine that usage will increase as a result.