15 #Twitter #hacks that will turn you into a tweeting #ninja

Admit it. Sometimes, your Twitter life is messy. You follow hundreds of people — maybe thousands. Staring at your timeline is about as intelligible as reading a stock ticker.

How do you bring organization to your Twitter life? How do you rise above the confusion, cut through the complexity, and become a superstar on Twitter?

You learn these 15 Twitter hacks.

Once you pick up on these power user features, you’ll become a Twitter ninja in no time.

1. Create a follow list

Want to turn your Twitter feed into a streamlined and swift way of accessing only the information you want? This hack is for you.

Create a follow list.

According to Twitter, “A list is a curated group of Twitter users. You can create your own lists or subscribe to lists created by others. Viewing a list timeline will show you a stream of Tweets from only the users on that list.”

Click on your profile → “More” → “Lists.” Or, just type in “g” and “l.” Then click “Create new list.”

Type in a name for your list and a brief description. Set the privacy settings, save the list, and you’re done.

To survey your newly-minted list feed, go to your profile page and click on “Lists.”

Add Twitter users to your list by clicking on the gear icon next to the Follow button on any user’s account. You don’t have to be following the user to add them to a list.

Choose “Add or remove from lists…” and check the list you want. Done!

2. Find out what lists you’re on

To gauge your popularity level, you can find out what public lists you’ve been added to. From your lists page, click on “Member of.”

Knowing what lists you’re on gives you an idea of how you’re perceived on Twitter. Are you in a lot of “SEO” lists or “digital marketer” lists?

3. Use hashtags

The more you use hashtags, the more engagement you’ll get on your tweets. Tweets with hashtags are proven to double engagement rate, grow more followers, improve reputation, and gain information.

Check out my infographic on the power of hashtags.

4. Tweet between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. EST, Monday through Thursday

The best tweet times are on weekdays between 9am and 3pm EST. Forget Friday.

5. Use search operators

Twitter’s search bar looks humble and unassuming, yet it possesses an incredible amount of power. You can unleash this power using Search Operators.

6. Use Advanced Search

Twitter’s advanced search is just that — advanced. With the exabytes of information being churned out by tweeters every day, there is a ton of great information available for the searching.

Advanced Search is the way to find it.

If you’re not yet adept at using the amazing buffet of search operators, you can use advanced search to stitch together a precise and targeted search.

Here are some of the features of Advanced Search:

• Search based on a set of given words
• Search for an exact phrase
• Search for any of several given words
• Search for something that contains none of the given words
• Search hashtags
• Search based on any of Twitter’s dozens of supported languages
• Search for people from certain accounts
• Search for people tweeting to certain accounts
• Search for people mentioning certain accounts
• Search for tweets sent near a specified location
• Search for tweets occurring within a certain date frame
• Search for positive tweets
• Search for negative tweets
• Search for questioning tweets – ?
• Search for retweets
• Search for any combination of all those things

I think you’ll agree that’s quite the level of complexity. Let your ninja searches begin.

7. See what has access

As you integrate your Twitter life with all the other aspects of your online life, there may be tons of apps that have access to your account.

Now and then, it helps to check out what applications are accessing your Twitter account. From your profile settings, go to “Apps.”

You may want to clean some stuff up by clicking “revoke access.”

8. Put hashtags in your bio

If you put hashtags in your bio, people will be able to find you better when they perform searches.

9. Eliminate emails

Don’t like getting tons of emails from Twitter? Turn them all off with a single click.

Go to your profile, then email notifications. Look for the “turn off” button at the top.

10. Be a Twitter texter

You love Twitter. You’ll love texting using Twitter. Just go to your mobile tab, and turn on Twitter text messaging.

11. Tell Twitter to get some sleep

If you are an inveterate tweeter and losing precious shut-eye because of your addiction, it’s time to impose some limits.

Click on “mobile.” Assuming you’ve added your phone, select the times that you ought to be sleeping, and keep twitter shushed up through the night.

12. Catalog your life’s tweet record

Are you into personal improvement, life tracking, and writing your own bio?

Twitter has a hack for that. Click the gear icon, then “Settings.” Go to the bottom and click “Request your archive.” You’ll get an email when it’s ready.

13. Subscribe to public lists

To join someone else’s public list, go to their profile and click “lists.” Choose what list of theirs you’d like to subscribe to, and click “Subscribe.” Joining lists does two sweet things:

• Gives you awesome theme-specific feed information
• Gets you exposure, especially if you’re wanting more visibility by the radar of list owners and participants.

Hint: You can follow a user’s public list without even following that user.

14. Train your #discover

The Twitter algorithm is sick. If you haven’t tried out #Discover, you need to do it now.

Clicking #Discover gives you an algorithmically-curated list of tweets that you should see, but that don’t appear in your ordinary feed. Based on follows, mentions, interactions, favorites, and retweets, #Discover gives you a list of the best of Twitter at that very moment.

It’s almost like it reads your mind.

15. Use Twitter keyboard shortcuts

Type ? in Twitter, and view all the most important keyboard shortcuts. Here’s what you’ll see.

G stands for go. Most keyboard shortcuts use “g” plus another key. Here’s your comprehensive list of Twitter keyboard shortcuts:

• Go home – gh
• n – new tweet
• f – favorite
• r – reply
•  t – rewteet
• m – direct message
• u – mute user
• b – block user
• enter – open tweet details
• | – close all open tweets
• / – search
• CMD + enter = send tweet
•  j – go to next tweet
• escape – close out a compose window or help window
• k – go to previous tweet
• space – page down (browser default)
• shift + space – page up (browser default)
• . – load new tweets
• g then n – notifications
• g then a – activity
• g then r – mentions
• g then d – discover
• g then p – profile
• g then f – favorites
• g then l – lists
• g then m – messages
• g then s – settings
• g then u – go to user…

Learning Twitter is like anything else in life. The more you use it, and the more you learn, the better you’ll get. These hacks will help get you there faster.

What other expert Twitter tips can you share?

#Facebook, #Twitter, #Google change face of Indian #elections

The three American social media giants, Facebook, Twitter and Google, have emerged as major players in the ongoing general elections in India, with political parties and candidates competing with each other in breaking the news, spreading their message through these outlets in addition to those via the traditional media.

While the impact of these social media on the elections could be known only after May 16 when the results are declared or could be a matter of another academic research, all the three major players have seen substantial increase in their India traffic and usage.

For instance, Facebook has now 100 million users in India, its largest outside the US, while that of Twitter has more than doubled since January this year.

After the 7th round of polling, there were 49 million Indian elections-related conversations on Twitter, more than double the 20 million Indian elections-related conversations on Twitter for all of 2013.

In 2009, Shashi Tharoor was the only Indian politician to have a Twitter account and had 6,000 followers. Five years later there is hardly any major political leader who does not have an account on Twitter.

Tharoor is now the second most popular politician on Twitter with 2.16 million followers, after Narendra Modi, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate with 3.89 million followers.

Modi now also has nearly 14 million fans of Facebook. Barack Obama is the only other politician to have more Facebook fans than Modi.

With political parties, leaders and candidates putting their advertisement on social media to reach out to their voters, all the three major players are reported to have made substantial addition to their revenue.

Though none of the companies are willing to discuss the advertisement revenue this election cycle, all of them have put in several months of tireless efforts and diverted substantial amount of their resources in the elections, many of them working thousands of miles away from India.

Facebook started working on the Indian elections towards the end of last year, says Katie Harbath, manager for policy at Facebook, adding that the company started doing a series of things beginning March this year when the elections were announced.

This includes launch of election tracker so that people can see in real time. Candidates are now using Facebook and Twitter for breaking news.

“We are really seeing the entire country discuss the issues (related to elections), Harbarth said in a recent interview.

“Facebook is really the key place of the conversation that is happening,” she said.

Adam Sharp, Head of Government and Nonprofits at Twitter, who has been involved in participating in elections in various countries of the world, said Twitter is a powerful way to return to retail politics. He conceded that elections have helped Twitter expand in India.

While the majority of the users of social media are concentrated in urban areas, the elections have also helped them expand their reach to the rural areas too.

Before the elections, the use of social media was generally restricted to the national political parties, but as the general elections gained momentum, even regional parties joined the social media bandwagon.

In a recent interview, Raheel Khursheed, head of news, Politics and Government, Twitter India, said the electoral landscape of social media has changed forever in India.

“Twitter has now become an integral part of Indian elections,” Khursheed said.

The sheer size is a major challenge for them, concedes Harbarth.

“It is just exciting to see, how much social media is being used in the election,” she said.

In addition to the volume and size, Twitter officials said the nine-phased elections are another major challenge.

“Twitter gives you a front row seat to the Lok Sabha #Election2014 in India and is the #1 place to go to stay informed about the latest elections developments.”

“This election is turning out to be the country’s first Twitter election; candidates, journalists and citizens have been using the Twitter platform extensively to discover elections content, converse with others in real time, and express their views,” Adams said.

On the other hand, Google provided platforms to politicians to reach out to their supporters through hangouts.

Google also created a Google Elections Hub for elections-related news and information created to help 800 million Indian voters stay informed and updated about the elections. The site also includes features such as elections related News Videos, Search Trends, G+ Hangout Series, and an interactive Pledge to Vote campaign.

“We want to make sure Indian voters have quick access to information to help them make informed decisions on election day. This is part of our commitment to bring essential information to Indians as they head to the polls in this historic election,” Rajan Anandan, VP, India Country Manager, told in an email interview.

“Google created its first elections tools seven years ago when our engineers noticed a huge increase in search traffic around the election period in the United States,” Samantha Smith from Google said.

“Today over 20 countries including Malaysia, Thailand, and now, India, have elections pages that aid voters during election periods.

“Google aims to encourage people to be more participative and engage with candidates. It also allows voters to have a deeper understanding of politics and governance through engagement with the candidates,” Smith added.

Several American media outlets have described the 16th general elections as the first social media elections.

“Social media has become the new election battleground for India’s nationwide parliamentary elections,” a CNN news report said.

Both officials from these social media outlets and experts are unable to predict this time the influence it would have on the election results. However, the Internet and Mobile Association of India estimates that a well-executed social media campaign can swing 3 -4 per cent of votes.

In 2009, the popular vote of the BJP was 78 million and that of the Congress was 119 million. In 2014, the total numbers of Indians on these social media outlets are matching these figures.

#Facebook launches #newswire for #journalists

Facebook said that it has created a newswire tool tailored to journalists, part of a broader effort to be the go-to place for conversation for its 1 billion users.

Called FB Newswire, it is designed to help journalists share and embed newsworthy Facebook content that is made public by its members such as photos, status updates and videos.

Facebook is teaming up with News Corp’s Storyful, the media tool that verifies and manages copyright of news and video on social media platforms like Twitter.

“News is finding a bigger audience on Facebook than ever before, and journalists and media organizations have become an integral part of Facebook,” wrote Andy Mitchell, director of news and global media partnership at Facebook, in a blog post announcing FB Newswire.

Social media platforms have become a gold mine for journalists. Facebook, Twitter, Google’s YouTube and others are rich in source material, as many people around the world use them to communicate, including during periods of upheaval.

Acknowledging that many journalists use Twitter to uncover material, Facebook is also providing a Twitter feed, @FBNewswire.

“We work closely with our news partners and as we look at the opportunities clearly Facebook was being used as a place to gather news,” Mitchell said in an interview with Reuters.

Facebook’s newsfeed, where people post stories, status updates and photos, is an integral part of the company’s revenue growth and it injects paid marketing messages straight into the news stream.

On Wednesday, Facebook reported a 72% increase in revenue to $2.5 billion during the first quarter because of a surge in advertising.

How #Twitter can help in predicting #crime

Hidden in the Twittersphere are nuggets of information that could prove useful to crime fighters — even before a crime has been committed. 

Researchers at the University of Virginia demonstrated tweets could predict certain kinds of crimes if the correct analysis is applied. 

A research paper published in the scientific journal Decision Support Systems last month said the analysis of geo-tagged tweets can be useful in predicting 19 to 25 kinds of crimes, especially for offences such as stalking, thefts and certain kinds of assault. 

The results are surprising, especially when one considers that people rarely tweet about crimes directly, said lead researcher Matthew Gerber of the university’s Predictive Technology Lab. 

Gerber said even tweets that have no direct link to crimes may contain information about activities often associated with them. 

“What people are tweeting about are their routine activities,” Gerber told AFP. “Those routine activities take them into environments where crime is likely to happen. 

“So if I tweet about getting drunk tonight, and a lot of people are talking about getting drunk, we know there are certain crimes associated with those things that produce crimes. It’s indirect.” 

For the study, Gerber and his colleagues analysed tweets from the city of Chicago tagged to certain neighbourhoods — measured by individual square kilometres — and the city’s crime database. 

They then looked forward and were able to make useful predictions about areas where certain crimes were likely to occur — something which could be helpful in deployment of police resources.

“This approach allows the analyst to rapidly visualise and identify areas with historically high crime concentrations,” said the study. 

“Future crimes often occur in the vicinity of past crimes, making hot-spot maps a valuable crime prediction tool.” 

In recent years, the idea of “predictive policing” has gained momentum, with police departments relying on “big data” analytics from companies such as IBM. 

This research comes on the heels of other studies showing how tweets can be analysed to predict elections, disease outbreaks and other important events. 

Gerber said Twitter data can be relatively easy to use because tweets are publicly available, and many of them are tagged with location information. 

In addition, researchers, themselves, do not need to go into the high-crime areas to study the information. 

Instead, “I send our algorithms to these locations and see what people are talking about,” Gerber said. 

“The computer algorithm learns the pattern and produces a prediction.” 

The study was funded by the US Army, which Gerber said uses similar techniques to determine threats in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

5 Common #Twitter #Mistakes You Might Still Be Making

Are you still making these 5 Twitter mistakes?

Twitter can be a great tool for establishing your brand, building a community and extending your influence. But to get the most out of Twitter and do all of the above, first you need to avoid making these common mistakes.

1. Starting a tweet with someone’s username

First time I learned about this tip, I was amazed! Imagine the situation when an influencer tweets your blog post praising your content. High fives! You’ve made it! Overwhelmed with joy, you send out a tweet that looks a bit like this:

“@influencer, thank you for tweeting my blog post. I want to send you flowers and a box of chocolate.”

There’s the one! Focus at the beginning of this hypothetical tweet and you’ll notice a mistake lots of people still make. The tweet starts with @username, which means that you’re basically preventing your followers from seeing that this amazing human being just tweeted your blog.

So, unless you want just this user and your Twitter profile stalkers to read your tweet, avoid starting with @username. Instead, use a period before @username (“.@influence thanks!”) to make your tweet visible to everyone in the Twitterverse.

2. Following me? Following you

Following back someone who followed you surely is nice, but not necessary. Follow someone on Twitter because you find what they tweet about interesting and not just because they followed you. This way you build a timeline that is relevant and can be a great source of content to share with your audience.

3. Making tweets too long

Shorter tweets drive higher engagement rates, science says. In fact, tweets 100 to 120 characters long get retweeted the most. So keep in short and to the point, to increase your Twitter engagement and leave space for your audience to retweet and add comments.

4. Tweeting the full URL

Many people do this and it makes perfect sense. Sometimes clicking on the the “Tweet” button when reading an article is easy and convenient. But this is something you should avoid doing, especially if you’re using to tweet for marketing purposes.

Every time you’re tweeting a full URL, you’re missing out on your tweet’s click rate metrics. Instead, there are so many link shortening tools you can use to easily check the number of clicks on the links you tweet. Google’s link shortener and bit.ly are both easy to use and give you extra insights on who’s shared this link already, which location the clicks came from, and how often they’re clicked within the past hour.

5. Setting up your analytics too late

Tweets and follower growth are definitely numbers you should be looking into to evaluate your Twitter performance. But they’re definitely not enough.

Being successful on Twitter is all about knowing what works for your audience and what doesn’t. And the sooner you know this, the better. Setting up analytics that matter – as soon as possible – saves you a ton of time that’d be better spent on tweeting and gives you a lot more insights on what your audience needs.

Keeping an eye on the stats of your mentions and retweets  is a good start to identify what you need to tweet to drive higher engagement rates and see which types of tweets help you do so. Are your tweet shared more when you use images, or plain text? These insights can help you grow your engagement and following.

What’s the biggest Twitter mistake you caught yourself making? Tell us in the comments below or tweet to me!

#Twitter #shuts down #Music #app

Twitter’s music app is being taken off the Apple App Store officially due to lack of popularity.

Twitter shuts down #Music app

The Twitter #Music app, available only on iPhone and the desktop, attempted to harness conversations around music and artists on Twitter to create a new way to discover music. However, the app failed to strike the right chord among users who preferred many competing music apps on the market.

While discontinuing the app, Twitter said that this does not mark the end of its efforts to help users discover new music:

Later this afternoon, we will be removing Twitter #music from the App Store. If you have the app, it will continue to work until April 18.

— Music (@Music) March 21, 2014

Rumours about Twitter killing #Music were swirling on the internet as early as October 2013. Twitter reportedly had stopped development on the app since past few months.

Twitter #Music was built by the team behind the music-discovery service We Are Hunted, which Twitter acquired in 2012 and subsequently shut down. Less than one week after Twitter Music’s launch in April last year, Kevin Thau, the company’s head of music, left the company to join Jelly as COO.

While the app integrated with popular apps like Spotify and Rdio, recommending tracks based on artists a user had followed and tweeted about, it never got much traction among mainstream users, the report added.

Source: HT Tech News

Top 5 Twitter features launched in 2013

Twitter rolled out a number of updates in 2013. We take a look at the top five updates/features launched by the micro-blogging website this year.

Top 5 Twitter features launched in 2013

Twitter entered its seventh year of existence this year. In 2013, we saw Twitter making some major changes to the micro-blogging site, with a special emphasis on non-text content and on mobile platforms. Twitter also rolled out two-step log in in attempt to prevent security breaches. Features such as Twitter alerts helped users get critical information when they needed the most. We take a look at the top 5 updates/features rolled out by Twitter this year:

Vine

Twitter kicked off 2013 with Vine – a new service that lets you capture and share short (six-seconds) looping videos. Users can use Vine on their iOS and Android smartphones to capture motion and sound – giving a very GIF like experience. Twitter’s Vine prompted Instagram to launch its own short-video sharing service. Also read: Hands On With Vine

Twitter Alerts

In a bid to make the micro-blogging site more socially relevant, Twitter launched Alerts service. The new feature allows Twitter users to access critical and accurate information from credible organisations in cases of emergencies, natural disasters or situations where other communication services aren’t available.

Improved photos experience

As said before, Twitter rolled out quite a few updates to improve photos experience on the network. Now, Twitter shows previews of pictures and videos from Vine. Photos experience in embedded posts has also improved – as pictures now appear larger when embedded. Moreover, users can click the photo to check out the conversation behind the Tweet. There is also an option to interact with embedded Tweets. Also, now users can send and receive photos via direct messages.

Older tweets in search results

Twitter made it easier for users to find their older tweets on the network. Prior to the update, search results displayed about a week-old only. Now, you can search content that’s beyond the recent Tweets.

Custom Timelines

One of the most interesting features on Twitter rolled out this year is custom timelines. Similar to storify, the feature lets you create a timeline, give it a name and choose which Tweets to add manually or automatically using an API. Different from the regular Twitter lists, custom timelines, featuring tweets that users want to add in their timeline, not subsequent tweets from their authors.

In 2014, Twitter users can expect a wide range of new features. One of the most anticipated features on Twitter is ability to edit tweets. Expected to be available early next year, the edit feature help you prevent embarrassments due to erroneous posts or typo errors and wrath of grammar Nazis. Mobile users are likely to be most benefited.

Which is your favourite Twitter update this year? What new feature/features do you expect from Twitter in 2014? Let us know in the comments section below:

Credit: ThinkDigit

10 Lifestyle Management Tips for Freelancers

“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?”

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Working as a freelancer can be one of the best experiences in the world but at the same time, freelancing can be an exhausting and sometimes overwhelming job. It can have its ups and downs, like any job and just like you’d do with any other job, you have to be able to balance out the pluses and the minuses in order to get the best results.

If something feels too difficult, that’s because there’s always a better way to do it. You just haven’t found it yet. Here are some lifestyle tips that you should consider if you are new to freelancing and want to make your life easier.

1. Don’t be afraid to outsource

A common misconception in the world of freelancing is that you have to do everything yourself. No matter how hard-working you are, you can’t possibly do everything well. By trying to cut down on costs and doing everything yourself you might end up spending more.

Remember: Your time is money!

Focus on the skills you have and do the tasks and jobs that require them and pay someone specialized in all the rest of it. A blog writer could spend four days to make a good banner for their blog, or they could hire someone to do it for them. Those days spent making the banner could have been used to write a good amount of articles. Is that banner really worth the same amount as those articles? Outsourcing is a good option to consider for every freelancer that specializes in a certain field. Do what you know best and let someone else do the rest.

http://www.mediastudieseurope.net/440/writing-is-one-medium-of-language.html

2. Use a contract when dealing with clients

“The faintest ink is better than the strongest memory”

Old Chinese saying

Having the details of your arrangement in writing will help both you and your client. This will allow you to prevent a lot of possible conflicts. It doesn’t necessarily need to be a legally binding contract written by lawyers. You basically need to have something in writing that you can show to your client in case the lines become dull and unclear over time. You wouldn’t want them pinning extra work on you that you did not agree to, would you now?

3. Use all the tools at your disposal

Technology is a great advantage we have in this day and age that should not be neglected. Use all the learning tools at your disposal to stay up to date with any developments in your field. Follow representative figures on Twitter, follow blogs, read research and find out the latest trends. Use computer and mobile applications to facilitate your work. Usage of proper communication software can enhance your communication with your team and with your client. Making use of mobile apps such as those that allow you to better manage your time, track the hours you have worked on a task or a project is another thing you can do.

4. Work on a schedule

As a freelancer, you get to be your own boss. You are the main person responsible for your success or failure. Just because your schedule is flexible does not mean you don’t have one. Keep a calendar, a to-do list. Try to schedule your tasks in advance for the current or upcoming day. There may be variations because freelancing can be a rather unpredictable work field at times, but it’s important to have a schedule. It will assure that you stay motivated and it promotes self-discipline.

5. Keep yourself healthy

Skipping meals because you’ve had a busy day is something you’ll often be tempted to do. You tell yourself that you will eat after you finish this last task, but somehow you don’t get around to doing it in the end. Before you know it, it’s time to go to sleep, you are tired, you haven’t eaten much and you still want to finish that extra task. Take care of your health. Keep a good eating schedule and sleep the required daily amount of hours, preferably during the night. Just because you work from home doesn’t mean that you can act like you’re in college again. A big part of being a freelancer is being responsible, and staying healthy is a perfect example of how responsible you can be by  taking care of yourself.

http://theyec.org/16-simple-tips-for-networking-smarter/

6. Network through social media

This is a long-term strategy that will, in the long run, yield results far greater than looking for an advertised job position. Find your targets:  former clients and other freelancers in the field are perfect. Make sure all your online content is linked. Post a link to your Twitter/Facebook on your blog/website, allow your viewers to like/share/stumble the content you post. Share others’ content regularly in order to get them to share yours.

Engage in discussion with the people you network with. Join discussion forums. Networking is more than just sharing and re-sharing. A big part of it is actually interacting and exchanging opinions in order to build your online persona.

7. Take pride in your work

Be proud! You get to sit at the cool kids’ table. All jokes aside now, freelancing can sometimes be a harsh business and you will need to see the silver lining at times in order for your morale not to drop below sea level. Take pride in your work because people hire you on a project based scenario and choose to recommend you and work with you again. Freelancing is a business in which only the best survive, and you are one of them! Unlike the “normal” employee-employer relationship, your clients choose you, over and over again, for the quality of your services, not because you have a legal contract that says they have to keep you around for another 8 months unless you mess up big time.

8. Don’t let stress get the best of you

If you haven’t experienced it yet, I can tell you the stress of being “your own master” – making your own schedule, prioritizing tasks, finding new projects to work on and completing the ones you have going – is no easy thing to deal with.

Don’t schedule your deadlines too close together and try to keep some “extra” time on the project’s schedule in order to avoid being sandwiched in. Set realistic deadlines and don’t tell yourself that you “work better under pressure”. True as that might be, pressure eventually causes a lot of stress that can break your process.

http://klinikpengobatanalami.wordpress.com/2013/05/29/mengatasi-stress-secara-alami/

Continuously marketing your freelance business will take away some of the stress of having to find new clients once you finish working on a project.

Learn to deal with differences that arise between you and your clients, learn to mediate and stand your ground when necessary so that you don’t question yourself twenty times after the issue has been settled. Knowing how to deal with the various situations takes away a large part of the stress associated with them.

9. Keep morale up, stay motivated

You will have times when your morale is lower than you’d want it to be and you find it hard to gather the necessary motivation to keep working. When this happens, remind yourself why you chose to work in your field and why you chose freelancing. List all the advantages your work offers you, such as a flexible schedule, the ability to take or reject projects. Try taking up a project for the sheer pleasure of working on it, if you have the time. Engaging in work you are really interested in will boost your morale and remind you why you love your job so much.

Set goals and reward yourself for reaching them. If you feel the need to, take a vacation to replenish your energy and come back with new and improved superpowers, ready for all the challenges clients are willing to throw at you!

http://www.edsocialmedia.com/2013/04/social-media-during-tragedy/socialtalking/

10. Don’t isolate yourself

My friends always tell me I don’t get out as much as I used to when I worked in the same office with some of them. I remind myself of this and try to force myself at times and go out even if I don’t particularly feel like it. When you’re working as a freelancer, working at home, it’s really easy to get isolated from some social activities. One of the advantages an office job offers is the daily interaction with your colleagues. When your home is your office, it’s easy to forget to do small things like go out for coffee and gossip or discuss new developments in various fields of interest.

Telling yourself you will go out and “be social” tomorrow is a sure way to end up isolated from your friends. Isolation can cause depression and depression is bad for business. So don’t isolate yourself, don’t get depressed.

What guidelines do you use in your lifestyle as a freelancer? What rules do you follow to keep yourself sane and make sure that you are successful in business? Share and comment below; I am more than curious about this one!

Credit: http://www.dzyngiri.com/10-lifestyle-management-tips-for-freelancers/

 

YouTube moves away from anonymous comments, towards Google+

YouTube commenters will have to mandatorily sign in using their Google+ IDs helping Google clean up YouTube comments and gain user information for marketing purposes.

YouTube moves away from anonymous comments, towards Google+

In a move that should have surprised absolutely no one, Google has announced that YouTube comments will start being powered by Google+ from this week onwards. This means that in order to comment on a YouTube video, you will have to own a Google+ account. However, this does not mean that you cannot comment anonymously, since you can still do so provided you make a Google+ account under a pseudonym. One of the main reasons for moving to Google+ is YouTube’s long desire to put faces to names when it comes to commenters, in order to reduce the amount of spam and vicious comments that plague YouTube comments and also to provide video creators a recognizable audience to reach out to.

The shift to Google+ comments isn’t just to cull offensive comments but also, to organize the thousands of comments that can be found on popular videos. Before this update, comments were arranged chronologically, with the most recent comment showing up first, right under the highest rated ones. This is not really helpful to anyone except for perhaps the commenter himself and may be to the person he is addressing. Under the new Google+ system, comments will be arranged as per the people who are in your circles, the video’s creators and what Google calls “popular personalities”. Also, comments will be threaded so that all replies can be collapsed into the main comment itself, which will vastly reduce the clutter in the comments section and will also make it easier to follow conversations. Video creators and commenters can also allow their comments on a YouTube video shared on Google+, to show up in the comments on the main YouTube site.

The new YouTube commenting system with Google+ identities & threaded replies

There could be a backlash against the new commenting system though. Google is obviously not establishing this system entirely out of the goodness of its heart but also to breathe some life into Google+, a social networking site that has resolutely failed to achieve any sort of user traction when compared to social networking behemoths like Facebook or Twitter. By appearing to force users of one its more popular services to sign up for its underwhelming service is not a move that will be seen in a positive light. Also, one of the big proponents of removing (or at least reducing) the anonymity of YouTube commenters, have been brands who want to know who their audience is. As a result, by making users reveal their identities through their Google+ profiles, Google will have a vast database of potential consumers that will be invaluable to brands.

At the end of the day, there’s no denying the fact that YouTube comments needed to be cleaned up and the commenting system required streamlining. Whether the new Google+ system was the right way to go about it, is an answer that will only be answered in the future.

Source: YouTube Official Blog via The Verge

 

Yahoo will start releasing transparency reports, too

Yahoo will start releasing transparency reports, too

Transparency reporting is getting trendy, guys. Yahoo announced today that it will release a transparency report for data requests from governments around the world — and we’re glad it is.

The company adds itself to the growing list of tech companies in Silicon Valley who want to share with users just who wants their data. Yahoo specifically says that it will include information about how it “processed the government data requests” it received during a period start January 1, 2013, ending June 30, 2013. It will also include how many accounts were affected by the data request.

Today’s report shows that the United States made 12,444 requests during this range. Yahoo gave over data in 11,402 of those data requests, denying 241 of the requests. It looks like the United States submitted the most data requests.

This is in keeping with companies such as Google and Twitter who release this kind of information regularly. Facebook also says that it will begin this process and recently released its first transparency report.

Google and others, however, are hitting back harder on the government for what kind of information can be printed in these reports. The government currently doesn’t allow companies to include how many data requests it receives under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. National security-oriented data requests are highly protected, though some national security letter data can be printed.

Yahoo has also sued the government for more of these rights, as the company explained in its announcement today.

This type of reporting has become even more important since former NSA-contractor Edward Snowden released information about a government surveillance program called PRISM. Citizens of the U.S. have been calling for more transparency around what kind of data the government is collecting about them, prompting the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to release transparency reports on behalf of the U.S. government.

Yahoo promises that it will continue to publish transparency reports every six months.