This article is a continuation of the Best Facebook Games of 2012, exploring the most exciting and popular games on the social media site.

Fifth on the list of most popular games in 2012 is the Sims Social. Similar to the classic Sims game, users control the life of an individual and are responsible for everything he or she does. There are only nine traits that the characters in the game can have, but unlike the previous Sim games these traits can be leveled. The game also has virtual celebrities lake Lady Gaga and Elvis Presley.

Although Sims Social only had 15.7 million users in the month of June and has 2.8 million daily users, it has been an important feature of Facebook since games were released. Prior to Sims there was Yoville, a version of Sims that Facebook created before it partnered with the Sims franchise. In YoVille, the top game of 2009, users would control a character, his home, his job, and could play minigames.

In sixth place is the well-known Words With Friends. One of the most popular daily games is Words With Friends. Although it does not reach as wide a base as other games, with only 17.1 million users in the month of June, it is one of the most popular that is used daily with 7 million users; it has also been listed as one of the best Facebook games of all time by Kotaku. Words With Friends is similar to Scrabble but is online with a chat feature that allows players to leave messages for their friends.

In seventh place is the extremely popular Bubble Witch Saga that had 20.7 million users in June 2012 alone and has 6.2 million daily users. Similar to Peggle or Bubble Island the user must destroy colored bubbles by matching bubbles of the same color. Bubble Witch Saga was also listed as one of the best Facebook games of all time on Kotaku.

In eighth place is the Hidden Chronicles. In this game the user searches for a list of hidden objects in different rooms in order to solve a mystery. It has 5.1 million daily users and had 20.4 million users in the month of June.

In ninth place is the very well-known Angry Birds. Made popular through a phone app, the user throws angry birds at green pigs who have stolen the birds’ eggs. The game has been gaining in popularity and had 19.9 million users in June 2012 and has an average of 3 million users a day. Angry Birds was also on Kotaku’s top nine Facebook games of all time.

In tenth place is are two classic games that are very similar in game play: Bejeweled Blitz and Diamond Dash. Diamond Dash had 18.4 million users in June and has 4.3 million daily users. Bejeweled Blitz has an average of 3.4 million users a month and is very similar in game play. In both games the player rearranges gems to get rid of sets within a time limit.

Although these are the most popular games of 2012 the nature of the Facebook social network means that what is popular is constantly changing. Facebook has released a new Marvel: Avengers Alliance game that is a 2D fighter. It has been listed as one of the best Facebook games by Kotaku and has been climbing in Facebook popularity. Currently the game has 9.4 million users a month and has had the fourth highest gain in June with 2.1 million users.

Ultimately what is popular this year and what is popular next year may change drastically in regards to which games are being played, but it seems clear that Facebook users prefer the classics and city-building more than any other types.

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Facebook has launched its latest tool where users can share that they are an organ donor, in the hope that it will help save more lives on a daily basis. Facebook users have to go to their timelines, where under ‘Life Event’ they will see a health and wellness section and then you can click to become an organ donor and share your story about when, where or why you decided to become a donor.

More than 114,000 people in the United States are awaiting organ donations, 79 people daily receive a transplant while 18 die, according to Organdonor.gov. In the UK, National Service Health Service (NHS) pointed out that there are over 10,000 people on the waiting list for an organ, while an average of three people a day die waiting for a transplant.

The new Facebook feature is working in the United States, UK, and Australia but it is expected to expand in other parts of the world. The US previously averaged about 506 new registrations per day, but since Facebook introduced the tool on April 30 more than 24,000 people have registered to donate their organs, according to Donate Life America.

Facebook added the organ donation feature to raise awareness to the issue after CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, took a personal interest in it, partly because of his friendship with Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. Jobs’s liver transplant extended his life several years.

The move will raise awareness about the critical shortage of organs for people in need of life-saving transplants. It may also create social pressure to inspire Facebook friends to consider registration.

This solidary initiative is seen by many skeptics like another way to obtain personal information concerning our health. Once we become an organ donor our privacy is stripped away, no matter how good Facebook´s intentions, sharing our data with the social network entails releasing information to an unknown companies without our consent. In an indirect way behind our altruistic behavior many big firms will make a killing exchanging information.

This donor program might bring about many successful and happy stories about saving lives, but in the end you are also an information donor, giving away your personal information to a company that can make profit off of it. Medical insurance companies will use our personal medical information to determine our eligibility for insurance coverage for their own protection, allowing health businesses to capitalize on insurance payments for the healthy, whereas others with bad medical history will be overcharged.

Another concern about organ donation is that medical information on Facebook is not protected by U.S. laws. According to the state´s Uniform Anatomical Gift Law, being an organ donor on Facebook is just as good being on the state´s organ donation registry.

Organ donation has never been “private” as it is openly displayed upon a public identification card. The choice of being an organ donor is personal and has to be respected. With the new Facebook feature, this choice becomes a public identity marker, something to be socially shared, commented upon, and potentially, conspicuously absent.

The advocacy group Donate Life American found that many people decline to became an organ donor for diverse reasons: citizens fear that they are not healthy enough or they are too old to donate their organs; others are concerned that doctors will not try their best to save them if they are known to be an organ donor; some people believe there is a black market where organs or tissues are sold; and some citizens question whether or not a person can recover from brain death.

Organ donation, as displayed through Facebook, is at once a deeply personal decision about death and the body, and a public display of generosity, fear, and/or general health. Whether you think that Facebook has made a strong move in a positive direction, or has once again taken sharing too far, the organ donation feature on Facebook embodies the categorical fusion that represents a connected era.

Image Courtesy of  withGod / Shutterstock.com

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Heavy drinking is a big issue among adolescents around the world. There are many factors that affect alcohol consumption: cultural, economic, familiar, education and social environment are those most frequently analyzed by experts.

Countries usually have a minimum age limit for selling, purchasing, and consuming alcohol. In most European countries it is 18 years or less, whereas in the United States it is 21. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) reports nine countries which have a complete ban on alcohol: Afghanistan, Brunei Darussalam, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Maldives, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Sudan.

NIAAA also reveals some interesting relationships between teenagers and alcohol. The world’s highest alcohol consumption levels are found in the developed world, including Eastern Europe, while parts of Africa and Asia show the lowest average consumption. In all countries, teenage males are more likely to drink alcohol than females. Religion is cited as the key reason behind low alcohol consumption and high rates of abstinence in Muslim countries.

College campuses are known to be places that encourage adolescents to drink. They are expected to act responsibly, but in many cases this is a naïve assumption because parents’ education, media and social network exposure, and other influences college may bring are not taken into account. Adolescents are also unaware of the negative effects drinking can have on themselves and those around them.

Education

Parents play a fundamental role and are key to the education of teenagers as responsible drinkers. There are two extremes: youngsters who have too much freedom who start to drink with their friends with no understanding of how their bodies will react to alcohol; and teenagers who were strictly prohibited from drinking alcohol by their parents until they reach legal age, who then drink heavily of what was denied them before.

The ideal scenario would be a parent who can teach his or her children how to drink responsibly when they are around 16 years of age. For instance, parents can allow a small glass of wine or a beer to their son or daughter at dinner time once a week. This way the teenager will realize how his or her body copes with alcohol, so he or she can be wise enough to know when to stop in the future.

But this is not the case. If you observe how adolescents drink on a night out, you will notice their immaturity. They break common sense of safe drinking; first by drinking large quantities very quickly — second, by combining spirits, beer, and wine which results in the worst hangover, and third by forgetting to drink enough water to keep from dehydrating.

College and University Influence

Many students leave their homes and move to others cities to be closer to the college campuses. Without the supervision of their parents, students get a lot of freedom that can get out of hand. They celebrate their weekends with parties at private homes, residence halls, clubs, and pubs.

Scholars drink for many reasons: novelty, fun, peer pressure, experimentation, escapism from stress, and the need to ‘fit in’. Many college students drink to make social interactions more comfortable, so drinking competitions are very popular around the campus. The paradox is that the losers are rewarded with more drinks, making the day after the real punishment.

Media and Social Network Exposure

Alcoholic beverages are advertised on television and radio, in print and on the Internet so the temptation for teenagers to drink is everywhere. Social networks may be the worst culprits. Adolescents use Facebook or Twitter to upload alcohol-related images, providing a socially accepted way of sharing their drinking experiences among themselves.

They derive personal satisfaction by their peers’ comments and even gain respect, measured in pints and hours. Social networks create an indirect niche for alcoholic drinks by promoting logos and links to brands. Therefore, the use of social networks construct social norms around alcohol, for instance by the uploading of alcohol-related pictures and jokes.

Movies depicting college parties or even ‘The Simpsons’ with the characterisation of drinkers like Homer and Barney can incite teenagers to imitate what they see. Celebrity alcohol use is also a key feature of the entertainment media’s access to young people.

Effects on the Drinkers and Society

The harmful use of alcohol increases the risk of death, disease, and injury. Alcohol dependence in drinkers leads to health problems such as cirrhosis of the liver, and cancer. Drunk-driving and domestic violence are other linked behavior of problem drinkers. According to the report Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health 2011, alcohol’s harmful effects result in approximately 2.5 million deaths each year.

The impact of alcohol also causes harm to the well-being and health of others. Diseases and injuries from alcohol have negative social effects and increases medical costs, which are force-fed to governments and families. The drinkers’ habits affect important roles and responsibilities of everyday life: work, family, friendship, and public character.

Binge drinking is associated with major health problems like alcohol poisoning, sexual malfunction, unintended pregnancies, and high blood pressure. When an adolescent gets intoxicated, it interferes with his or her productivity, resulting in missed classes, and absences or lateness at work because they must take time out to recover from their drinker’s mistakes.

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The National Inflation Association has announced that it believes Facebook will likely start trading this May at a peak valuation of $100 billion and see its market capitalization and share price decrease in value in the years afterwards.

Facebook has successfully grown their monthly active users from 1 million in 2004, to 6 million in 2005, to 12 million in 2006, to 58 million in 2007, to 145 million in 2008, to 360 million in 2009, to 606 million in 2010, and to 845 million in 2011. After achieving compound annual user growth from 2004 to 2010 of 191%, Facebook’s user growth in 2011 declined to only 39%.

If Facebook begins trading with a market cap of $100 billion, Facebook will be trading for approximately 27 times 2011 revenue of $3.711 billion and approximately 150 times 2011 net income of $668 million.

A price/sales ratio of 27 and P/E ratio of 150 is too high of a premium to pay for a company that has just reached 50% market penetration in the U.S. Moving forward, NIA believes in 2012 we will likely see Facebook’s user growth decline to 20%, with its user growth declining to just 15% in year 2013 and 10% in year 2014.

It is unlikely that Facebook will ever be able to achieve the same market penetration in Europe that they have achieved in the U.S. Facebook needs to expand into the Chinese market, but the Chinese government has blocked off access to the social network.

In October of 2007, Microsoft invested $240 million into Facebook at a valuation of $15 billion. In January of 2011, Goldman Sachs’ international clients invested $1.5 billion into Facebook at a valuation of $50 billion.

While Microsoft is set to make a profit of 667% in 4 1/2 years and Goldman Sachs’ international clients are set to make a profit of 100% in just 1 1/2 years, NIA believes that the U.S. financial mainstream media that is currently hyping the Facebook IPO, is setting the general public up to get slaughtered on Facebook’s common stock.

The consumer social networking space has experienced very dramatic growth over the past few years, with Facebook being the dominant leader of the industry. Moving forward, NIA believes that social networking technology will soon begin to revolutionize the workplace in the same way that it changed the personal lives of millions of people around the world.

Recent college graduates, who experienced Facebook’s very dramatic growth first hand, are beginning to enter the workforce and are demanding that their employers adopt enterprise social networking technology at their place of employment.

The enterprise social networking industry is projected to grow 61% annually between now and 2016. Enterprise social networking is expected to grow from being a $600 million space in 2011 to a $6.4 billionspace in 2016. This is similar to the type of growth seen in the consumer social networking space over the past four years.

Although Facebook is the dominant leader in the consumer social space today, there is a good chance that another consumer social company will grow to become larger than Facebook in the future. Back in 2006, many analysts expected MySpace to remain king of consumer social networking forever and projected MySpace to continue rapidly growing indefinitely. Instead, Facebook surpassed MySpace and MySpace was recently sold by News Corp for 94% less than what they paid for it.

The American public needs to realize that Facebook at a valuation of $100 billion has far more downside risk than upside potential. While Facebook’s growth is going to rapidly decline in the years ahead, there are two publicly traded companies in the enterprise social networking space that are positioned for enormous revenue growth moving forward.

The user growth of these two companies could accelerate greatly in the years ahead as major corporations begin rapidly deploying their own enterprise social networks. Currently the enterprise social networking industry is still in its infancy, but by 2016 it is likely that the majority of the largest corporations around the world will be using some type of enterprise social networking platform within their business.

The two major publicly traded companies in this space now are Jive Software and BroadVision Inc. Jive is the industry leader with a market cap of $937.97 million. After subtracting Jive’s estimated net cash position of $200.99 million, Jive’s Engage social platform is currently being valued by the market at $736.98 million.

BroadVision only has a market cap of approximately $153.51 million. After subtracting BroadVision’s cash position of $54.4 million and another $17 million in value for their old legacy products still generating revenue, BroadVision’s Clearvale enterprise social platform is currently being valued at only $82.11 million.

BroadVision is NIA’s latest position. BroadVision just reported that they signed 117 new Clearvale Enterprise customers in 2011, up an amazing 290% from the 30 they signed in 2010. In fact, BroadVision signed 33 new Clearvale Enterprise customers in the 4Q of 2011 alone, which was more than they signed in the whole entire previous year.

Jive hasn’t yet reported their year-end 2011 results, but Jive has reported that they only signed 113 new Engage customers in the 12 month period ending June 30, 2011.

BroadVision’s Clearvale is now growing faster than Jive’s Engage, when at their current share prices Jive is receiving a valuation for Engage that is approximately 9 times higher than the valuation that BroadVision is receiving for Clearvale. Besides BroadVision’s fully featured Clearvale Enterprise, BroadVision also offers a free starter version called Clearvale Express.

Any employee at a company can quickly and easily setup their own Clearvale Express account to use at work. After outgrowing Clearvale Express, companies have the ability to seamlessly upgrade from Clearvale Express to Clearvale Enterprise.

BroadVision also offers a unique Clearvale Passport reseller program, which allows other companies to offer Clearvale to their clients. Softbank, a $30 billion Japanese telecommunications giant, had so much success using Clearvale Enterprise within their corporation that they have now joined Clearvale Passport and are offering both Clearvale Express and Clearvale Enterprise to their partners and clients.

NIA believes that BroadVision’s free starter Clearvale Express platform along with their reseller program Clearvale Passport, gives the company a huge advantage over Jive. In NIA’s opinion, BroadVision has the potential to become a bigger company than Jive in the future.

Image Courtesy of   http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/

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Innumerous accounts of discomfort with security of mobile social networks for gay guys, like Grindr, have prompted the makers of Hornet, a brand new, second generation network, to make security and safety front and center of their app design.

This starts but is not limited to the next most important item after use of condoms to control the spread of STD, the knowledge of one’s HIV status and a reminder to frequently re-test, especially if the person is sexually active on gay social mobile networks.

Based on the positive experience of websites in Asia, Hornet is the first to introduce the “Know your Status” KYS campaign to mobile social networks for gay people.  In their profile, positive or recently tested guys will get a special marker, so that users are prompted to enroll in this purely voluntary campaign for a safer environment.  Once a test comes up for renewal, Hornet reminds people to get tested again, or their KYS status lapses to unknown.

Unlike most other gay SNS and Grindr, Hornet uses an HTTPS secure connection and SSL certificates as known from your Online Banking.

In addition, Hornet has integrated innumerous safety and security features into its app.  Unlike most other gay SNS and Grindr, Hornet uses an HTTPS secure connection and SSL certificates as known from your Online Banking.  It also gives users full control over a private portion of their picture uploads, so that broadcasting one’s profile in their neighborhood can be more controlled than an entirely open experience or map-based displays, making them vulnerable to hate crimes.

Within any app system that stores data, there are vulnerabilities, but apps like Grindr can make some easy improvements to move forward with security.  Hornet encourages the entire app community to make improvements and migrate in this direction, so that users can browse in a more secure environment, making our message today about bringing the ease of online dating to more users and sharing the market in a secure way.

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The new social network name as SOCL (Socialized) will integrate three factors that nowadays specialists see as future trends: tastes, searches and communicative interaction. Consumers want to read things that matter and grasp their interest. Therefore this new social network tries to integrate this platform as a platform towards education.

Microsoft has chosen students as the main target for this new network. The purpose of the new social network is to allow students to share useful information in a fast and effective way. The platform has been developed and tested in an experimental way. And the main objective is to expand the way that the students use the social media and expand their educational experience by learning to communicate in a better way and convert this platform into a “the new classroom”.

Several Universities such as: Washington University, Syracuse University and New York University are the only institutions that have been allowed to try this new service. Although in the future hopefully a lot more add to the list.

According to a post exposed on the Microsoft Research website, this new network has been exclusively designed to broaden their educational experience and propose a new way in how students learn and communicate.

SOCL will basically allow its users to perform any other tasks featured in other networks, such as posts, uploading pictures and videos, or sharing content among friends. But something unusual and a section that it highlights form the others is the possibility of searching and finding students with similar tastes, build communities that have the same educational aspirations.

The Exchange of ideas and knowledge is something that is going to be a valuable aspect in this network. Throughout the project: Montage. SOCL will expose a visual collage of images, videos and stories. Allowing the user to choose what he wants to read, hear or learn.

An application called “Video Party” will enable the possibility to share a video. Several people will be able to watch a video on the same time and thought-out a chat they can interact, discuss and talk among each participant.

Lili Cheng, general manager of FUSE Labs exposed: “What we’ve seen in the last year or two is innovation in the way schools are teaching and learning from students, creating new programs to study how information spreads, motivates learning, and creates expertise,” Cheng says. “A hugely popular freshman course in some schools is Social Media 101, which often leads to a project-based innovation course where students build and deploy their ideas.

“These are not just computer-science students, but also business, design, or humanities students. They don’t necessarily write code, but they can be encouraged to re-imagine how social software and the way people are sharing and exchanging information shapes the world. We are experimenting with So.cl to use our own tools to partner with more students and learn from students with a broad base of expertise.”

Noticing how students have adopted new skills and search for new ways of acquiring knowledge, Shelly Farnham, a FUSE Labs researcher working on So.cl. Said: “Today, social media is a really active part of the learning process,” Farnham says. “It’s a common story that we hear: Someone will first hear about something because their friend mentioned it on Facebook or they saw it mentioned on Twitter and from there, they search in Wikipedia or through a search engine. Then they’ll go back and do searches within Twitter to find out not just the content of a news story, but also how their friends are responding to that news story. There’s this real sense of a conversation happening within social media around what they are learning.”

The idea is to foment learning and allow students to find people with the same interests and provoke subjects of conversation where the exchange of ideas is a constant activity.

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Facebook’s new design “Timeline” and Google Plus’ neat organization and visual impact have given it users something to talk about. Twitter has decided to follow its competitors’ strategies and give its users something to talk about as well. The social network has unveiled a new set of changes and modifications in its design.

The new design, dubbed Fly Twitter, proposes a new and fresh design for its users. The slogan, which appears on twitters official site (http://fly.twitter.com/index_en.html), portrays the new design by saying: ”Yours to discover. A faster, simpler way to stay close to everything you care about.” Although not yet publicly available, it will be introduced in the coming weeks to its 300 million users.

The new design will basically consist of four areas: Home, Connect, Discover and Me. According to Twitter, the Discover Page will be one of the most significant since it will expose trending topics and popular discussions that are being discussed around the web. On the other hand, the Connect area will be the platform where everything that users do–such as mentions, retweets and followers–will be placed.

These changes have clearly developed to grant the social media site a place in the market since its competitors have applied new designs too. ”Today we introduce a new version of Twitter. We’ve simplified the design to make it easier than ever to follow what you care about, connect with others and discover something new,” Twitter said in a post on its official blog.

“What we’re announcing today is just the beginning. We now have a framework in place that we will quickly build and iterate upon to help users connect with whatever is meaningful to them.” New apps for iPhone, Android and TweetDeck have been released this Thursday, December 8.

Twitter’s new image will integrate a lot of simplicity and visual impact. The users will be able to count on an easier way to navigate through the the page, and newer applications with different page areas will offer something different.

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=0qqDy5BmYKE

1000 Words / Shutterstock.com

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On the Beach report that social media is a great way to research holidays this festive season; and not just flights, but hotels and car hire as well. More and more UK travellers are turning to sites like Facebook to find polls, discounts and reviews on their prospective destinations. 40 per cent of UK holiday makers use social media to help them research, a recent survey reports.

On the Beach say social media is useful for providing a range of information including reviews, flights prices and cheap hotels. The report, which was published by the World Travel Market, surveyed over 1000 British holiday makers who travelled locally or overseas in 2011. One third of the respondents using social media reported that they’d changed a hotel booking after looking at social media sources.

Alistair Daly, Marketing Director at On the Beach, commented that Facebook is a useful tool for customers to exchange information. “Our On the Beach Facebook Fan Page provides a forum for customers to quickly and easily give us feedback, suggest pages to friends and look up quotes. It’s a great forum in which to ask questions and get professional advice for booking a holiday.”

Daly continued: “Using Facebook, we’re able to keep in touch with our customers, directly addressing their issues and interests, and alerting them to the best budget deals and cheap flights to Turkey, Majorca and Portugal, to name a few.”

Founded in 1995, On the Beach is one of the UK’s leading online travel agencies carrying over 500,000 passengers every year. On the Beach provides value for money flights and hotels in the world’s most popular beach holiday destinations. They also provide consumers with a huge selection of travel products, from 50 million available seats, more than 30,000 hotels around the world, insurance and in-resort transfer partners.

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Social Media continues to expand around the world and impact it, in its own way. In Guatemala, e-Marketing didn’t start picking up until about 3 to 4 years ago and it wasn’t only until about a year and a half to two years ago that agencies started to develop social media strategies.

After seeing some of the success from local companies, restaurants started taking advantage of it, to get their share of the market. It continues to expand throughout the years, with Facebook being the biggest social media platform utilized in Guatemala today. With only 2.5 million people with access to the internet in Guatemala, 1.6 million people have a Facebook account.

However, before Facebook, hi5 was considered one of the most popular social networking sites. In 2008 hi5 had 12,831,000 Latin American unique visitors ages 15 and up, while Facebook had only 7,711,000. MySpace became very big 2 years ago. According to comScore, social media has always been huge in Latin American countries. They are heavy internet users and mainly use the internet as a way to communicate with others.

According to Enrique Parros of TPP Emarketing, Twitter is a Social Media platform that is starting to grow in Guatemala and the reason for this growth is that mobile phones are becoming more easily attainable. The demographic segment in Guatemala that is currently active on twitter is mostly made up of kids, but 24- 35 year olds are starting to pick up on Twitter. This is why twitter is still an educational process in Guatemala.

The main social media Platform used for marketing in Guatemala is currently Facebook, due to the high concentration of people logged into Facebook. Facebook, to TPP Emarketing, is a great way for consumers to communicate with a brand. It is also a great way for people to interact with the brand, which will later help them to decide the future of the brand, and where it is heading. Another way Facebook is being used in Guatemala is as a focus group.

One major success story for TPP Emarketing is from the Facebook page Claro, which has 264,196 likes on Facebook. Gallo was also another great example of how successful Facebook was in helping to boost sales. In April of 2011, Gallo had about 90% of the market share in the country.

TPP Emarketing works with so many brands, such as Claro, P & G, and McDonald’s, that it would be hard to manage each account separately. This is why they use Hootsuite. It is a service used to manage social media accounts on one dashboard. With Hootsuite, companies like TPP E-marketing can manage their Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Foursquare and myspace accounts at once, and even schedule posts for later dates.

E-marketing is still growing in Guatemala, and for some it is still a learning experience, but digital marketing is always growing and expanding. Agencies are starting to pick up on it and take advantage of the marketing tools that are accessible. Some of the services offered today are SEO marketing, Public Relations, E-Mobile, Social Media and E-Advertising.

Digital marketing may be growing but TPP E-marketing understands the importance of utilizing it in their marketing campaigns and strategies.

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The Brazilian Project about a social network that connects students and universities started in June and has since then reached more than 700 schools and universities through their website. Translated into twenty languages and launched in more than 12 countries around Latin America, USA, Spain and Italy, the EDUFINDME will this year reach Europe and Asia.

EDUFINDME has turned out to be a perfect environment for increasing the range of academic relation between institutions and students. It is a platform that beyond the connections made also suggests matches between both parts; students and universities. This is really useful to people searching for good opportunities to study around the world.

It  is also possible to find search engines to be use by both sides with the goal of helping students save time. Instead of using traditional search engines that doesn’t target any specific groups and spend hours searching for universities and courses, this project aims to collect all the important information in one place.

And from the point of view of the universities, it is a great tool to help further their campus internationalization process. It is also a good place to spread the word about scholarships and avoid that good students go unaware about opportunities. At the same time it is perfect for good institutions to connect with the best talents out there.

The whole process of connecting is completely free and easy. First step of the platform is about selling yourself and creating an interactive profile that will attract the right people. After this, you should synchronize your profile with other social media accounts and try increase the network opportunities.

This step will make it even easier to get connected with others. Finally, you will be reached by schools and students. In order to have the best options you will also find different ways to sign up: as an student, as parent searching for the kids, educational provider and agencies.

There are a lot of good programs that go finished but unnoticed and because of this, everybody interested in an academic path with a global perspective and who search for good opportunities should give the EDUFINDME a try.

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Where are the children who play hide and seek in the streets, fly kites, jump ropes, ride bicycles, play with dolls and cars, spend hours building a Lego’s castle during their childhoods’ golden age? They are no longer easily found in the outside areas around their neighborhoods.

Instead, infants are hiding themselves and replacing their group activities on a sunny day for more and more solitary pleasures under their home roofs. One in four Brazilian children uses the Internet, according to research done by the Comitê Gestor da Internet (CGI), the Internet Manager Committee.

In the same report, the group reported that 90 percent of children surf the web to play video games and do homework. Video games, especially Internet games, are holding children’s attention who stare at a computer screen for hours and hours.

Children are also becoming familiar with modern technologies, such as smartphones that allow users to access the Internet just by touching the screen with a finger. They can download games on their phones, and play for long periods, which can represent a regression in their social activities and developments.

The research showed that 42 percent of the children, from five to nine years old, access internet from their homes, and 29 percent of them usually are by themselves when they use of it. Contradictory to previous studies that showed more children in the 13-18 age group used social media, research shows that one third of the children from five to nine years old are engaged in social media.

The most common websites used in Brazil are Orkut, Facebook, and Twitter. While kids are spending their times in social media, adults are not engaging themselves as much on the same websites. According to the website vagas.com.br, which receives résumés and job applications online, out of the 54,000 resumes registered, 8 percent of 30-34 year olds have a profile on Facebook, 9 percent use Twitter, and 11 percent use LinkedIn.

For people older than that, the estimate is even lower, with only 4 percent that use of Twitter, and 5 percent that use LinkedIn and Facebook. The general social media public is made up of those under 24 years old. Adolescents use Twitter the most at 44 percent, Facebook at 43 percent, and LinkedIn at 25 percent.

Brazilian social media users are not balanced in numbers. Children and teenagers use the technologies because they grew up in an environment surrounded by the innovations. Now adults and the elderly are following online trends by trying to insert themselves in the same environment.

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Social network sites can do more than entertain us, they can actually help people find employment. And even those who have good jobs can benefit from being apart of a social network site; they can grow their contact list and create content related to one’s training.

The following popular social networking sites can be very helpful tools when trying to advance one’s career:

LinkedIn: the largest professional social network. Creating a profile on LinkedIn allows the user to display their resume, interests, and career objectives. Past employers are able to “recommend” someone who worked for them in the past.

Recruiters and human resource professionals are able to view users’ skills sets; there is a chance they will reach out to LinkedIn members if there is a job opportunity that fits their specific abilities. This is also a helpful place to follow news on one’s favorite businesses and industries. Additionally, LinkedIn posts job openings for members to look at.

Xing: it is similar to LinkedIn. Xing has been very successful in Germany, although it is being used in other countries as well. With more than 11 million users, Xing is giving Linkedin some competition. It allows professionals to connect and engage with each other.

Twitter: a social networking sites with a limitation: 140 characters. Twitter is unique in its use of fewer words. It is a great tool to share and follow interesting content. It is easy for users to “follow” companies, organizations, and individual people that they like. “Retweeting” comments by people can be a great way to show interest in the topic or company they represent.

Also, sometimes companies or individuals will post job openings on Twitter.

Facebook: It is possible to use this popular social media site, with its more than 500 million users, in a professional way. It is important that the user is careful with their privacy settings.

Users shouldn’t display too many personal photos or comments; However it is possible to use Facebook for both personal and professional use if the user is mindful.

Google +: This new social networking site consolidates social networks with other platforms. Google + combines the content sharing and viral quality of Twitters with Facebook’s communication format; with more characters and “like” buttons and commenting options. Also, creating “circles” on Google + is a simple way to organize your content and control who sees your information.

One of the most important things to remember when using any of these sites to advance oneself professionally, is to display a conservative and appropriate photo. It’s also important to not be a pest. Sending too many private messages to someone could scare them away instead of making them interested in you as a potential employee.

Users should try to adapt to the different types of social sites they are using. While each has its specific rules and etiquette, the strategy of engaging with companies and presenting oneself professionally applies to each site when searching for a job.

With today’s weak economy, it’s necessary to be patient when searching for a job. Being resourceful is also key. Getting a presence on all the different platforms can be helpful; maximizing one’s presence and connections to others.

There are other ways to use the web to advance professionally that doesn’t involve social network sites. Creating and updating a blog can be a great way to present yourself, your skills, and your interests. Blogger and WordPress are popular blog platforms.

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In our age, the difference between real and virtual life is often blurred — but while technology does not replace what makes us human beings; when we use it, it tend to add value to our sense of self-being. Professor Robert Dunbar of Oxford University spoke about a predefined number of 150; this is the average number designed for human beings’ capacity of close friends.

Whether you know it or not, 150 is the number of friends we can actually call friends and it is a number which is dependent on our neocortical area. 150 are those with whom we are not just saying hello or sharing jobs, but those of whom we can ask for help or share deep details of our lives. They are the ones we can distribute time and energy to, without handling it as a burden or a cost of opportunity.

Those 150 people are the average the human brain can manage. The number can vary between 100 and 230, and only the extent of our brain capacity or of our available time would let us deal with more friends, as Robert Dunbar delicately describes in interviews and in his writings. The number is not equivalent to our Facebook friends though.

Professor Dunbar explains that a human touch, a real one, is worth a thousand words and until technology can simulate virtual touch, we still have to put a line between Facebook friends and ‘real’ friends. Facebook statistics shows that the average number of friends for the average Facebook user is 130.

It seems that, although many of us live in a virtual world for more than half of our daily lives, we seem to remain in touch with reality, or maybe our brain obliges us to. We might declare 500 virtual friends because we work ourselves into a world where we are obliged to keep track with hundreds of people, but our real life is limited to the 150 number in practice.

Technology and the social networks are only tools that extend our capability to work beyond the limit. Our brain and cognitive capacity is adapted to and confirmed by the 150 number — even while we become addicted to globalization through technology. The development makes us more intelligent and more evolved as human beings.

We have to manage our time according to the technological progress, and meanwhile, we have to shape our relationships in the same pace. Life is defined by numbers. Dunbar, as well as Fibonacci, puts our lives in numbers. Instinctively we feel these numbers; our brain is limited to them, even though sometimes technology, globalization and life by itself show us that limits and numbers can be recreated.

In this way, technology brings added value to what human capacity cannot handle at this point.

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Have you ever wondered if you are being watched when you use your social media or your mobile phone? The recent Retrevo Gadgetology study discovered that a lot of snooping and tracking goes on among people who know each other.

In other words, strangers are not the only people who collect personal information without your knowledge — also your intimates spy on you in secrecy. You would be surprised to know how regularly your parents, date or spouse read your emails or text messages or even track your comings and goings.

The study, which surveyed more than 1,000 online users, found that the percentage of spouses and parents who admit to digital snooping is significant and among romantic relationship – on the rise.

In the Retrevo Gadgetology study, more than a third of respondents, 33%, admitted that they have at least once checked their partner’s email or call history without his or her knowledge. The number for married couples is slightly more with 37% of married respondents admitting the same.

Parents, however, are the worst online snoopers. The number is highest among parents of teenagers with 60% snooping on their kids and possibly for good reason since 14% of those parents reported they found evidence that supported their concern.

Not only is snooping on emails, text messages and call history more common today but smart phones with built-in tracking technology make it easier for a suspicious partner or parent to secretly track their loved ones.

The majority of parents claim that they don’t have a problem with tracking their children’s location with a cell phone service or other device. Especially mothers are prone to snooping, accounting for 64% while fathers make up 53%.

Additionally, Retrevo researchers stated that when they looked at the data from their study conducted a year ago, they were surprised to learn that snooping had increased across the board. Overall, the number of people less than 25 years of age who check their boyfriend or girlfriend ’s personal digital correspondence rose from 38% last year to 47% this year.

Plus, women are more likely to admit to snooping than men.  For 2011, the number of women saying they check their partner’s phone-calls, emails, and text message without them knowing is 35%, whereas the percentage of men who do the same account for 30%.

Ultimately, while the government is busy crafting legislation to protect our privacy and prevent companies such as Apple and Google from tracking our online activities, the Retrevo Gadgetology study show that consumers may have just as much to fear from people they know.

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