Facebook will leave your privacy settings intact after you die

The social network will no longer change dead users’ pages to the highest privacy setting

Facebook users whose friends and family have died leaving profiles on the site will be able to request Look Back videos for their loved ones.

The site has also changed its policies regarding memorial accounts to allow users to retain in death the privacy settings they selected in life.

This will allow people to see memorialized profiles in a manner consistent with the deceased person’s expectations of privacy, said Facebook’s Chris Price and Alex DiSclafani in a blog post. We are respecting the choices a person made in life while giving their extended community of family and friends ongoing visibility to the same content they could always see.

Both changes affect memorial pages, profiles of users who have died and whose family members have requested the page be left open in memory of the deceased. The tradition began as an ad-hoc practice, but in 2009 the company made the practice official, in part to prevent users being asked to “get in touch” with dead friends.

Until now, memorial pages have automatically been set at the friends-only privacy setting, allowing only those who were friends with the page’s subject in life to see their account after death.

Facebook will also let users who have suffered the loss of a loved one request to view that person’s own look back video, the short round-up of past activity on the site that Facebook produced for its tenth anniversary. As Price and DiSclafani explain, the impetus was a user request:

For one man in Missouri, the Look Back video he was most desperate to watch was one that had not yet been made. John Berlin reached out to ask if it was possible for Facebook to create a video for his son, Jesse, who passed away in 2012. We had not initially made the videos for memorialized accounts, but John’s request touched the hearts of everyone who heard it, including ours.

Twitter Music review

Until now, my problem with social music services has been this. Following friends doesn't really turn up much music I actually want to hear. We didn't become friends because we share musical tastes, and too few of them are using the services I'm trying out.

Twitter's new music service solves this problem.

 It helps that it's free. With it, I'm able to sneak a peek into the musical interests of the artists I like. For example, I discovered that Gotye likes the Divine Fits, a Los Angeles-based band I'd never heard of until now, because he follows them on Twitter.

With a tap on the colorful photo representing the band, I can listen to a 30-second preview of the new song of theirs that is being tweeted about the most. For the Divine Fits, that's "Like Ice Cream." It was catchy enough for me to want to hear more.

After listening to a preview, I can tap a button to buy the track on iTunes or listen to the full song through a $10-a-month subscription from Spotify or Rdio. I can also find other songs from the artists through those outside services.

As a discovery tool, Twitter's #music service provides a convenient, visually pleasing way to filter through the deluge of music that's out there.

Sure, I could have replicated this feature by digging through Gotye's Twitter profile and individually going into the profiles of people he's following to determine if they're artists. Then I could search elsewhere for their songs or music videos. But that's more work than I'm ready to put into this.

The #music service highlights the artists for you and features the song preview right there.

The service also has a tab for emerging artists that it somehow digs out from tweets. I'm not sure how they're selected, but random poking around this page is how I found the broody music of Skylar Grey.

Finding new music can be tough. It's easy to get hit over the head by the chart-toppers, who are everywhere. There's also a "popular" tab in #music for a rundown of which artists are trending on Twitter.

It's way more difficult to find music you like if you never knew a band existed. This provides a way.

For now, #music is available as an iPhone app and on the Web. Twitter says an Android version is coming, but it didn't say when.

Beyond its usefulness for music discovery, the Twitter #music app is fun to play with. It is far more engaging than Twitter's regular app, and swiping around makes the squares representing artists bounce around. Tapping to play a song clip generates a spinning icon with album cover art that harkens back to the heyday of vinyl records.

True, this is a marketing tool and I was skeptical to start. And #music is not perfect for listening. Artists have only one song apiece on their profiles, so if you want to hear more you've got to go elsewhere.

And even if you buy a song from iTunes after discovering it here, tapping the play button on the artist's square again will still play the 30-second preview. I discovered this after buying Skylar Grey's "Final Warning" for 69 cents. To hear the full version, I had to go back to the iPhone's music player.

It also didn't track the #NowPlaying tag very well, despite putting it in all my tweets from the service. There was a considerable lag in showing these tweets from people I follow compared with my normal Twitter feed.

For full song plays within the service, you have to sign up for a premium subscription to Spotify or Rdio, each of which costs $10 a month.

This made using #music much better, although I discovered more artists by listening to just 30 seconds, making a quick decision and moving on - kind of like speed dating for music. The clips will play back-to-back, which can make for a jarring listening experience. But you also can focus your time on quick music discovery and go elsewhere to learn more.

Connecting the service to my Rdio account helped because the songs I played through #music showed up on the Rdio app's history list. That way, I could switch to Rdio to listen to the whole album.

Thanks to #music, I discovered that I like the Divine Fits and Skylar Grey within, say, a half hour of fiddling with the service. That makes it worth downloading, in my view. I'll go back to it when I'm on the hunt again for music I didn't know was there.

LinkedIn now available in Chinese

Professional social networking website LinkedIn Corp launched a Chinese language version of its website on Monday, a move that could jumpstart its expansion into the world's largest Internet market by users even as the company acknowledged it will have to police what some of them say on its website.

LinkedIn Chief Executive Jeff Weiner acknowledged in a blog post on Monday that the company would have to censor some of the content that users post on its website in order to comply with Chinese rules.

But Weiner said the benefits of providing its online service to people in China outweighed those concerns. He vowed that the company would be "transparent" about its practices as it builds its presence in a country it said is home to one in five of the "knowledge workers" that are LinkedIn's core audience.

Shares of LinkedIn were roughly flat in after-hours trading on Monday at $199.49. The stock is down roughly 23 percent from its 52 week-high of $257.56 as investors fret about two consecutive quarters of declines in its page views.

"Extending our service in China raises difficult questions, but it is clear to us that the decision to proceed is the right one," Weiner said.

Foreign Internet companies face difficulties operating in China. Beijing censors sensitive terms from the Internet and blocks social networks Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc , a widespread effort that analysts say is geared towards maintaining the Communist Party's hold on power and preserving social stability.

LinkedIn's arguments about trade-offs for the greater good are reminiscent of Google's justification for its controversial 2006 decision to launch a self-censored version of its search service in China.

Four years later, Google reversed course and relocated its search engine to Hong Kong from mainland China, following a dispute with the Chinese government over what Google said was increasingly onerous censorship and cyber-attacks it said originated in China.

The Chinese language website that will be available on Monday is a "beta," or test, version of the site. LinkedIn is still in the process of getting a license to operate the Chinese language site, which will require that the company maintain server computers in China that will store data about its Chinese users, according to a source familiar with the matter.

LinkedIn already has more than 4 million users in China who use its English language website, but the company has signaled that it is interested in making a broader expansion in the country.

Weiner said the Chinese language site would help LinkedIn reach 140 million professionals in China, providing the potential for the company to significantly expand its current audience of 277 million members.

The company's expansion into China comes as LinkedIn is trying to transform itself from a social network used primarily by job seekers and by recruiters into a more full-fledged online hub for professional workers.

LinkedIn has recently begun encouraging its members to write career-related articles and post them on the website, a move the company hopes will boost the amount of time users spend on its site.

Weiner said that China's restrictions on content would be implemented "only when and to the extent required."

"LinkedIn strongly supports freedom of expression and fundamentally disagrees with government censorship," Weiner said.

"At the same time, we also believe that LinkedIn's absence in China would deny Chinese professionals a means to connect with others on our global platform, thereby limiting the ability of individual Chinese citizens to pursue and realize the economic opportunities, dreams and rights most important to them," he said.

Get the Amazing Manual Link Wheel Service from Rankwinz!

The Link Pyramid strategy is one of the most popular and known link development strategies. The link development method is part of the search engine optimization of a website, more exactly, part of the Off-Site optimization. Search engine optimization is an online marketing technique to promote and rank your website higher. The off-page direction of it is based on link development techniques, social media marketing and others. Basically, it is about every step outside the website.

How the Link Pyramid strategy works?

This strategy is a level based one. There are three layers of the pyramid. At the top of the pyramid is placed the website which needs to be promoted. It is also known as money site.

The first level consists of several (not a lot) of websites where is anchored a link to the money site. These websites usually have a pretty high PR. This is the main reason here need to be employed only a couple of websites instead of numerous of them. Most often, at the second level of the pyramid are used and done high PR blogs, such as Wordpress, Jcow, Elgg and others.

The second level consists of more links than the second one. The links here are pointing to the websites from the second level and not directly to the money site. This is why the PR of the websites used here doesn’t need to be as high as in the case of the previous layer. All the links created here are meant to strengthen the work done in the second step. Most often here are used the social directories in order to build links.

The third level is about fortifying the third one. A lot more links are built here. These ones are created, pointing to all the links from the third level. Since this is the last step, it consists of numerous websites with an average PR. The fourth layer is about quantity, unlike the second level, which is all about quality. The links done here are designed to strengthen the links from the third level. Usually, at this layer, are employed and used various blog comments for posting links. All the links from the second and third step are meant for the search engines bots in order to push the money site.

What results can be seen?

Since this is a pyramid scheme, the money site is always protected. Therefore, the Link Pyramid strategy can bring only good results when done properly. The level strategy such as this one is among the most suitable SEO strategies, especially because it cannot harm the money site; only get it in higher rankings and winning more visibility for it. The Link Pyramid method is definitely one of the most safe and lucrative link development strategies. 

Rankwinz team offers a wonderful opportunity to promote your site manually and  absolutely safe! Order Now!                   

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Link Building in 2014 is All About Building Your Brand & Reputation

Many of those who pursue link building have had a tough year. Google’s verbal and physical assault on link building practices has been unrelenting.

You may be wondering if link building is illegal now. The answer is yes andno. Why? Let’s explore the “yes” and “no” of link building to try and help make some sense of what it is that you can and can’t do.

Recounting the Body Blows

1. The latest major hit took place January 20 when Google’s Matt Cutts wrote a blog post titled The decay and fall of guest blogging for SEO. In it he wrote:

Okay, I’m calling it: if you’re using guest blogging as a way to gain links in 2014, you should probably stop. Why? Because over time it’s become a more and more spammy practice, and if you’re doing a lot of guest blogging then you’re hanging out with really bad company.

He also wrote:

So stick a fork in it: guest blogging is done; it’s just gotten too spammy. In general I wouldn’t recommend accepting a guest blog post unless you are willing to vouch for someone personally or know them well. Likewise, I wouldn’t recommend relying on guest posting, guest blogging sites, or guest blogging SEO as a linkbuilding strategy.

 2. On August 12, 2013 Matt Cutts recorded a video where he talked about widgets and infographics. Here’s what he said:

I would not rely on widgets and infographics as your primary way to gather links. I would recommend putting a nofollow, especially on widgets because most people when they copy and paste a segment of code, they don’t realize what all is going with that, and it is usually not as much of an editorial choice because they may not see the links that are embedded within that widget.

Depending on the scale of the stuff you are doing with infographics you might consider putting a rel=nofollow on infographics links as well. The value of those things might be branding, they might be to drive traffic, they might be to let people know that your site or service exists but I wouldn’t expect the link from a widget to carry the same weight as an editorial link freely given where someone is recommending something and talking about it in a blog post.

3. On July 26th, 2013 Google updated the Link Schemes section of their Webmaster Guidelines to talk about Press Releases.

4. Going further back, I published an interview on July 9, 2012 called Matt Cutts and Eric Talk About What Makes a Quality Site. In a moment of inspiration, I asked him the following question:

It dawned on me recently that link building is an interesting phrase that has misled people. It’s a bit of a cart before the horse thing. It has led people to think about links as something they get from the “dark corners of the web”. Places where no one ever goes, so it does not matter what you do there. So by thinking of it this way, as link building, you are off on the wrong foot even before you get started.

Here is what he said in reply to my question:

That’s right. It segments you into a mindset, and people get focused on the wrong things. It leads them to think about links as the end goal. It’s important to think about producing something excellent first. If you have an outstanding product, world class content, or something else that sets you apart, then you can step back and start thinking about how to promote it.

I remember the response to this interview very well. It currently has 168 comments.

There was a raging discussion about the discussion on content. There was a lot made about the comments on infographics (he also said this in the interview: “I would not be surprised if at some point in the future we did not start to discount these infographic-type links to a degree.”).

But, no one talked about his comment on link building being a fundamental problem in their write-ups of the interview. I knew right then and there that it was the most important comment in the entire interview. The future was already laid bare.

Dangers of Link Building

There is certainly a type of approach to link building that Google is trying to kill off, but there are hints in Cutts’ language as to what they still think of as OK. So let’s make some sense of this.

First, let’s talk about how to get hurt by link building:

1. Algorithmic Detection: There are many things Google can’t easily algorithmically detect. Unless you’re far out there, this isn’t a main source of exposure, but you can’t discount it.
2. You Get Reported to Google: Someone might report you to Google, and they might take a look at it. Once they do, any and all of these areas will rapidly get revealed. In short, cross any of these lines and a manual review will torch you.
3. Someone Public: A blogger somewhere might figure out what you have done and write about it. Google’s hand gets forced and they take a look at you. This is the worst. You will be publicly exposed and you will get hit by Google to boot.

There is a very important secondary algorithmic danger.

Imagine that you do a lot of work to get links using one particular method. Let’s say that Google tests a new algorithm, and they see that devaluing all sites that use this method improves their search results without causing any significant false positives (i.e., no major brand gets torched) — they are going to release that algorithm.

My point is that if you aren’t a major brand, even if you’re “unjustified collateral damage”, Google will push the algorithm out. For Google, it isn’t about you, it’s about the average satisfaction of their users. They measure this on a massive scale, and your site is less than a decimal point in the grand scheme of things.

This is exactly how Panda and Penguin work. They are large-scale algorithms that improved Google’s search results, but that also caused lots of innocent businesses to suffer (and others prospered too). This isn’t because the Google engineers are bad people, they are just trying to make their product better.

This is the reality of small to medium businesses and SEO. As a long time friend of mine used to say, “if you don’t like it, you should have become a dentist.”

So let’s start with a statement of what your objective should be: Don’t just obey the letter of the law, but learn how avoid the net. In other words, you need to learn how to stay away from the types of practices that may cause you to get lumped together with the great mass of truly bad actors. So let’s talk about how.

Building Links the Right Way

Fear not, there is a right way to go about things, but it may require a mental mindset change.

If you’re focused on link building for link building’s sake, then you need to see these words again from Cutts on link building in my 2012 interview: “It segments you into a mindset, and people get focused on the wrong things”. OK, let’s get to the work on the task of getting our heads in the right spot.

First, let’s clear something up. Cutts isn’t saying you can’t promote your website. He knows that you need to do marketing. We talked about ways to approach link building in detail in my July 10, 2013 interview, Link Building is Not Illegal.

If you read the interview carefully, you’ll see that it’s a blueprint for content marketing. Basically, it lays out the components of how you can create great content on and off your site, promote it with strong social media presences, press releases, and other tactics to build a great brand online.

And there it is — the b-word: Brand. This is what your link building efforts should all be about.

Everywhere you go online building your brand and reputation should be the goal. If you strictly abide by this one principle, you should be in good shape, and you will probably be getting links that Google wants to value.

Only 52% of Facebook Ad Spend is Outside the U.S. 

If you're looking to grow your business internationally, a new report by Marin Software says the potential for reaching your audience through Facebook ads is strong in regions like Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Latin America (LATAM). 


According to the report, 85 percent of Facebook users reside outside North America, but only 52% of ad spend targets regions outside of it.

Marin's report shows APAC is already the leader in Facebook user volume, with its global user base share projected to grow from 28% to 32% by 2015. However, global brands are spending five times less on advertising in this region compared to North America, the report said.

"For companies that sell products in high-growth markets like APAC and LATAM, a growing number of Facebook users creates opportunities for more impressions to well-targeted audiences," the report stated; especially since the "barrier to entry into other key Facebook markets is relatively low."

Because Facebook in the APAC region has a significant amount of users and low advertising competition, Marin said it's amongst the most promising for reaching a target audience through the social platform.

But when it comes to user engagement, Latin America beats out all other markets. And Marin said performance marketers "investing in native advertising channels should consider the levels of user engagement and interactivity the platform’s users have with its paid and organic content."

And the LATAM market also excelled in advertising click-through rates. According to Marin data, Facebook CTR in LATAM is 33% higher than North America and 54% than Western Europe. 



To prepare for international Facebook marketing, Marin gave the following tips in its report:

• Determine Your International Sales and Fulfillment Capabilities
• Assess the Regional Demand for Your Product or Service
• Understand International Laws and Regulations
• Build an Appropriate Strategy for Each Market
• Tailor Your Advertising Messages Based on Cultural Nuances
• Customize Your Creative Based on the Local Market
• Plan for Language Translation and Localized Campaign Management
• Separate Campaigns by Regional Audience

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