Last time I told you about what updates Twitter did last month? And also about the new Retweet page that they introduced (to only some fortunate users), which is very helpful, especially for all who are using Twitter for business. These days Twitter is up to something different.

They are testing three new features and this time in the search page. They have added three new features called ‘Save this search’, ‘Top Tweet’  and added a search box in sidebar too with up and down uptions.

Save this search

This feature is quite helpful for all who keeps on searching on Twitter for something or another as it gives them an option to save what they have searched and can view it again later on!

Top Tweet

This is not of any use as I think. It just counts the number of Retweets a tweet gets and if crosses 90 or 100 it becomes a top tweet.

Search box

I think yes! It was a needed feature that was missing from Twitter and did a good job by adding it.

What do you think about these features? Drop it down!

Yeah! One of the giants telecom company Vodafone has launched a social application, but the bizarre thing about it is, it’s not only for Mobile phones, but also available for desktops!  This application released by Vodafone called ‘The update app’ is an application that allows the users to update their social profiles’ status right from desktop only.

What’s happening right now in Twitter or facebook?? What are your friends sharing/doing? With this application you can easily get all the details all in one application, even you don’t need to visit the sites again and again. It appears as if Vodafone has finally comprehended the overwhelming power of social networking these days.

Now no need for login in your Facebook,  Twitter or MySpace account, all your accounts can be accessed via your desktop only. All updates are available on your desktop only. You can update your status or post tweets using this awesome application and uploading photos to different networks was too never such easy.

Its greatest advantage is, it is fee to download and easy to install. Looks like an awesome app isn’t it?

So what are you waiting for? Go and check out the app at Vodafone!

A new facebook scam has started on facebook. It’s a video spam named Candid Camera prank! [HQ] has been circulating. Actually this is not a video and it links to an application which will take you to download a file named vlcplayer.exe (a software to play VIDEO & MP3 files) and running this will post this message on your friends’ wall. So it will keep spreading as the users keep on clicking on the scam link.

Here’s the message it displays on Facebook wall: Name, This is without doubt the sexiest video ever!. The length is shown to be 3:17.

When you click on the link, you will be taken to http://apps.facebook.com/nadq_sdas/, then it will ask to continue and says that your video player is out of date. It then brings to another page to download a file. Don’t click these links when you see these types on posts on your wall on your Friends’ wall. Simply remove these posts from your walls.

I personally tried this so that I can know how it worked, thankfully while downloading the file my anti virus deleted that file because it contained a virus. So now I know it contains virus…So guys stop clicking on such scam links and don’t download such files though precaution is the best policy.

If you have already clicked on the application and allowed access to that application you can go to application settings under your facebook settings and can remove access of that application.

Do share your comments about this dangerous scam….

Credits: TechNnot

Again a small, but good news for Facebook lovers. A man in Britain was united with his long-lost father after 37 years with the help of Facebook. Andy Spiers-Corbett, 39, who had lost contact with his father Graham Corbett when his parents separated, typed his father’s name in search box of Facebook and instantly picked out his photo from a long list of Graham Corbetts.

Seems even oldies are too addicted to Facebook.

No doubt that Facebook is addictive social networking site, but yeah it also helps to get a great business and money; especially for bloggers. Though for an addicted user working at office it becomes hard to even open it and update his status because in most of the offices, social networks are blocked by firewalls and proxies even don’t work there. So you too are one of addicted facebook users working at office where it is blocked? Not able to surf it? Don’t worry! I have found a great plug-in for Microsoft Outlook (I think every office has its copy) using which you can easily access it, FBLook (Facebook + Outlook).

Now you can update your status message on facebook, can see your friends’ status & see the number of new requests without having to open Facebook in any of the browser or application. FbLook merges with your outlook and provide all above-mentioned things within outlook itself.

Features:

• Update your Facebook status directly from Outlook.
• Set your status to the name of the song you’re playing in itunes
• See your friend statuses.
• See notifications of new Friend Requests, Messages, Invites, Pokes, etc..

Configure [How]:

FB Look is supported by all windows versions with outlook 2003 SP3, 2007 SP2. It’s not supported by outlook express. Download it from here. After you have installed it, just open your Outlook add-ons click on login in Facebook option after that several messages will be displayed to guide you through the process. There are four steps, but they need to be followed only once.

It took me about four minutes to download and install it and I must say for people like me who use Outlook it is a great utility. Share your views about it.

Link: FB Look.

Being a Twitter user I was never happy with it, though I was a regular user, but I didn’t like it too much may be because of silly updates and tweaks in the site that Twitter used to without even announcing them on the official blog or might because of their slow and irresponsible sever, but these days I’m quite happy with them not because their server issues are very less as compared to the last month, but because they are improving. Seems April was a lucky month for Twitter, Twitter had done a lot of changes, even bought some companies too, which made me a great fan of them. Tonight I’m going to share with you what did Twitter do last month (evening going to share some more updates that only a few of readers know.)

Friday, April 09, 2010

This day Twitter acquired the most used Twitter iPhone application by Loren Brichter – Tweetie, which was later on renamed to Twitter for iPhone and made available for free (previously it was available at  a cost of 2.99$ at iTunes store.)

Wednesday, April 14, 2010

At this day @anywhere feature of Twitter was made live for all its users, using which they could easily engage with existing Twitter features from all of their favorite sites.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

I’m sure most of Twitter mobile users won’t forget this day as this day Twitter acquired Cloud Hopper, messaging infrastructure company that enables Twitter to connect directly to mobile carrier networks. Twitter welcomed both Joe and Kristin of Cloudhopper to their Mobile team.

Friday, April 30, 2010

After signing a deal with Loren Brichter and Cloudhopper, Twitter moved their hands on Android phones too. This day Twitter launched it’s first ever application for Google Andriod phones powered by 2.1 or above version of the Operating System.

These were the changes that Twitter did (officially did) in the month of April, but I have also noticed some more changes which were not announced on official blog (may be they are testing them), which I would like share too.

ReTweet Page

Remember Twitter added retweet feature using which one can easily retweet someone’s shared thing? Now they have added something similar to that – A RT page! This page has three tabs available and they are:

1. Retweets By Others: This tab covers the status shared and Retweeted of the famous celebreties (as you can also see in the picture).
2. Retweets By You: This one covers the Tweets, which has been Retweeted by you.
3. Your Tweets, Retweeted!: This page will show you the status of your profile which has been Retweeted by others with their profile link and image too.

The changes that Twitter made especially in their servers are really appreciable (appreciate it!) and all these changes made me a great fan of it. Now I don’t have anything bad to say about them. Just two words – ‘Keep Rocking’. You too can say something if you want, just drop it down!

Are you a Facebook user who is too addicted to it? Want to start a blog, but don’t have time to manage it? If yes, then today what I am going to share with you would definitely help you out! Facebook’s designer Rob Goodlatte with his team of geeks has came up with a new platform for Facebook addicts cum wanna be bloggers – Facebook Me. Using this tool one can easily transform his profile into a mini-blog.

How to start?

• Visit Facebook Me’s homepage.
• Connect to it by logging in with your FB credentials. 
• That’s it! You have a blog now!

Just like other blog platforms it too have awesome themes (just three now. They’ll add new soon), but the thing which did not like is – Blog URL. A facebooker turnerned blogger won’t get any link for his blog. Overall it is a great way for Facebook users to start a mini-blog without wastage of time and spending a single penny!

I think Twitter is up to something big, even full two weeks have not completed from the day of acquisition of popular Twitter app for iPhone – Tweetie, (which is now changed to ‘Twitter for iPhone’ and available for free cost) previous day they again acquired a company – Cloud Hopper, messaging infrastructure company that enables Twitter to connect directly to mobile carrier networks in countries all over, started in early 2008 by Joe and later on joined by Kristin.

They didn’t disclose the terms and conditions in the deal. In the official post Kevin, Twitter mobile partner said:

Over the last eight months we have been working with a startup called Cloudhopper to become one of the highest volume SMS programs in the world—Twitter processes close to a billion SMS tweets per month and that number is growing around the world from Indonesia to Australia, the UK, the US, and beyond.

To help us further grow and scale our SMS service, we are happy to announce the acquisition of Cloudhopper, a messaging infrastructure company that enables Twitter to connect directly to mobile carrier networks in countries all over the planet. Please join us in welcoming both Joe and Kristin to Twitter’s mobile team.

According to me this deal will definitely help Twitter in saving a lot of money which they used to share with their Mobile SMS partners in past; collaboration with Airtel, Telstra. What do you say?

<Image Credit>

The same question came to my mind when I compared the performance of Twitter in the month of December, when I started using it to the month of the March. That time the Twitter was more reliable and easy for its user for whom it is not now. That time their site was not going up and down after every two-three hours or they were not releasing new features after a gap of every two days (of which they even didn’t write on the official blog, then why do they need a blog, huh?). I am too addicted to use Twitter, like all other bloggers and social media dudes. This month I found many unwanted changes in Twitter that I personally think should not be there, which caused many times server down problems. I compiled a list of types of site down problems with their pictures. Have a look down-upon.

FAME: The above image clearly lets us know that Twitter’s database maintenance system featuring dictionary driven access to items is very poor. They need to make a lot of improvement in it.

Under Maintaince: Don’t know how many times a day Twitter guys update the site. The page showing “Twitter is under construction or maintenance” is very common now a days, which it wasn’t in December.

Home page: Three days back Twitter update their home page (actually they are just testing), this new version no more available for Internet Explorer users. I tested the site on IE, whenever I logged in via IE7 or IE8 a security dialog box appears and the site goes blank (actually it is due to httpS problem). Well, I can’t blame them for this because the home screen is in beta version (I forgot to take the actual pic, will update the post with original pic of blank Twitter screen soon).

Result?

You would be shocked to see the results of the server down problems. Even when I read this, I too was shocked! According to a study by US-based Barracuda Networks, only 21% percent of twitter users are genuine (most of the users have joined because celebrities opened Twitter accounts) rest all are spam or bots. The reason behind it could be the server down issues because in this modern world of Web people wants everything light and fast (which Twitter isn’t).

Suggestion

Again I am typing down the same thing which I posted in last post about the Twitter published on 22nd of March. Twitter please buy more bandwidth or change your servers and please maintain your database properly, if you want a great micro-blogging site.

I am sure most of you must be unaware of this that last night Google updated the page rank of all the sites live on the Web. Google didn’t update the Page rank of most of the sites (and even they didn’t update ours). They mostly updated the rank of new blogs and sites. I came to know about the Page rank update when I was just going through Passionate Bloggers blog. It got page rank two! If you want to check your site’s page rank you can install Google Toolbar to check or just refer to PR Checker.

Passionate Bloggers

Did Google change your Page Rank?

I think Twitter guys should hire me as an editor for their Indian blog (co-editor will be OK too ) as they are every second day adding cool new features to their site, but not announcing them on their blog officially. Don’t worry I’m their to keep you all updated! It is good that they are trying to improve their site, but the thing is all these features had made Twitter a bit slow these days. From past five-six days I am observing some slowness in the site. Today when I logged in my Twitter account, I had to send a message to one of my friends I saw a drop down menu with box containing all my friends name. That drop down menu box was nothing else just another new feature added by Twitter to make sending messages more easier and less time consuming. To give it a try I sent a testing message to my another profile. (see the pic below)

Message

This feature is simply great as its time saving. To send a message to someone just login to Twitter account > click on direct messages button > click on the drop-down menu box, choose your friend’s name to which you want to send the message and press the send button. That’s all. If you haven’t seen this feature yet go and check out your profile and please drop down the comments below about this new feature.

My Profile

Advice: If Twitter guys are reading this post, so I want to give an advice to you all – if possible please buy more bandwidth as Twitter is getting slow day by day.

Today when I signed in my Twitter account to re tweet the last post, which I posted about the sunspots Facebook trick I saw a new change in Twitter. When I rolled over my cursor on the link of the Extreme Trix (@ExtremeTrix) I saw an Ajax based dialog box loading, which took three to four seconds to load and showed the information about the site’s Twitter profile’s info like name, bio, if I’m following it or not.

That Ajax box also contained a more (about more) link, I clicked that link and it started displaying all info the profile including how many followers are there, how many friends I am following via my site’s account, who listed and what I did tweet last. I think this feature is active in all profiles as I checked it from my all Twitter profiles and it was available in them.

I personally liked this feature and good to see that Twitter is improving. If you haven’t seen this feature yet, go and check it out and do let me know if you liked it or not.

We all love to chat and stay in touch of friends online, some of us even like to share what we do, what are we doing and what we find interesting by blogging via Twitter, WordPress, Blogger or any other blogging tool. Bloggers like me always try to find shortcuts for making their task easier for them. Digsby is a one the most used application used by many bloggers as it is multi protocol internet messenger, which makes staying connected to friends and sharing updates task easier, as it helps them to be a social media dude, which would help them in better productivity. It is a great tool, but there is a problem in it, it doesn’t work properly on Windows Vista 32 bit and doesn’t work at all in some PC. (source)

So today I’m sharing top six alternatives of Digsby, which are tested by myself and works great! (honestly speaking (actually writing ) I have just tested them on Windows platform not on all Operating Systems.)

1. Pidgin:  If you are an Ubuntu Linux user, then I’m sure you may be aware of the default internet messenger client installed on it called Pidgin. The best thing about this is, it is extend-able through plug-ins, including “Off-the-Record Messaging” and Pidgin encryption, providing end-to-end message encryption. Pidgin is available for Windows, Linux & Mac.
2. Trillian Astra: It is not used by many people like Pidgin or Digsby is, but believe me it looks awesome. It lets you connect to multiple internet messenger and social networks at the same time, managing contacts and real time status feeds efficiently, currently it is available on Windows, iPhone, online & Mac application is under development, but alpha is there!
3. Psi: Psi is a free instant messaging application designed for the Jabber IM network (including Google Talk). Fast and lightweight, Psi is fully open-source and compatible with Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. It is not having stunning looks like Trillian Astra, but works great on Windows XP.
4. qutIM: It is also an open source chat client available for Windows and Linux operating systems. It looks a bit similiar to Digsby in graphics.
5. Yoono addon: basically it is not an application, it is an add-on for Mozilla’s Firefox browser, which allows any one to connect to social networks while surfing internet within the browser only. This add-on works only on browsers installed on Mac & Windows. Its desktop version is also available, but I didn’t try it yet so I’m not writing about it.
6. Miranda IM: It is the smaller, faster, easier instant messenger with support for multiple protocols. Designed from the ground-up to be resource efficient while still providing a rich feature set, Miranda includes support for AIM, Jabber, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo, Gadu-Gadu and more. Additionally, with the choice of hundreds of plugins, icons, sounds and other content. It can be highly customized like by addons just like Pidgin. It is available only for Windows.

[Update: Today I came across a new chat messenger - Chit Chat. It is not a  multi protocol  like the other messengers I listed above, but it is a simple chat messenger designed especially for facebook, which has several benefits over the other chat messengers. It looks simply awesome in design. You read rest about it here.]

Do you know any other alternative of Digsby? If yes please let me know.

Have you ever thought of what your website says about you and your business? If your answer is “No”, then you should start thinking about it. In the online world your website is the only way by which your customers can interact with you and learn about your products. Therefore, the importance of having a great website cannot be ignored. Part of having a great website is the impression that your potential customers get from visiting the site.This can assist in influencing them in online campaigns and can determine your success and the amount of revenue your website generates.

What your visitors think about you and your business depends on your website. This article will help you in determining what your website reveals about you and your business to your customers.Color-Scheme: – Believe it or not, your website’s background colors can tell your customers a lot about your attitude. According to a study on color schemes: Red means you are confident and know what your customers want, Blue is the color of trust which means you care a lot about your customers, Yellow is the Color of warmth and happiness which means you are reliable, Green means you are fun loving person, but this color is mainly used on websites that are owned by environmentally friendly organizations and lastly, White means you are always open to new ideas.

Absence of Testimonials: – If your websites don’t contain any testimonials from your previous clients then it gives signals that you are not reliable enough or that old clients were not happy with your service or that you are very new to business. More testimonials you will add to your website and thus allow more people to contact you or want to work for you.

Adding Lots of Content: – If your website contains a lot of content, which is of no use for your visitors, then it means that you don’t know how to express yourself. Adding a lot of useless content also implies that you can’t differentiate between important and not so important things for your visitors.

Excessive use of “I” and “We”: – If you are using words like “I” and “we” too many times in your sales copy, then it means that you only want to tell your visitors about yourself or your products and are not interested in what they need and how they can solve their problems. Customers are not interested in knowing how great your products are, they just want to know how those products can solve their problems.

Tip: How to start an affiliate marketing.

Non-User-Friendly: – A website, which is not easy to use or requires a user to install some software to run it properly gives the impression that you gave priority to your convenience and don’t care about your customers and visitors to your website. You are assuming that the individuals who come to your website already have the required software installed on their browsers.

Poor Layout: – Poor layout or navigational structure makes the process difficult for your users when searching for information. This can show your customers and visitors that you don’t know how to organize things correctly and can make your business appear poor to others.

Broken Links: – When a user clicks on link and lands on an Error 404 page or sees a “page does not exist message”, then it shows that you are careless in your work and can make you seem too busy with your current business and not available to handle new clients.

Incomplete Contact Information: – Incomplete contact information on your website says that you don’t want people to contact you or you are trying to hide something and not a trustworthy business. If you are planning to make some changes in your web blog or site, then you can give a try to Go-gulf, which is a web design company in Cairo and provides high quality website development and logo designing services in various areas of Middle-East.

Hope you enjoyed reading my article, if you really enjoyed reading it please do share it with others and drop down a comment.

Editor’s Note: This post is written by our guest blogger Gagan, who is a freelance writer and loves to write on Landing Page Design and Optimization, Affiliate Marketing, SEO and Latest gadgets. He blogs on – Landing Page Design. If you, too would like to write for Extreme Trix, then please check this.

Image Credits – Vaishnavi Solutions & Resource Nation

I’m continuously blogging since the launch date of Extreme Trix version one. Now I’m completely tired by blogging. Blogging is disturbing my studies and my social life too. Because of blogging I’m not able to focus on my studies properly nor able to spend time with my friends and family. This time I want to score good marks not like what I scored in first term. I was getting second rank in my class, but I failed in Mathematics so didn’t get any rank.

I still have two months to prepare for my exams so I can score good marks. I have decided to take a long break from blogging. We’ll be back after the month of Feburary when my exams will get over and my holidays will start. After coming back the first thing I’m going to do is the launch of first WordPress theme (haven’t decided its name yet, actually its under construction). Hope you guys will like it.

Tweet this!

Please spread this message to others via Twitter (with the link of the post) and comment back with status link (comments will be moderated by Hack Minded and Prateek.). One of the lucky will get a valid Rapishare Premium account valid until 21st of Feb.

Thanks and Regards

- Ankit