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Facebook launched three recent changes: revamped Friend Lists, a real-time news ticker, and the subscribe button. Friend Lists lets you share content with just your closest friends (with whom you have the strongest emotional connection), and the ticker lets you have real-time conversations with your friends as soon as they do anything. Subscribe lets you fill your News Feed with people you admire and respect, fostering a different type of emotional connection. But these changes are just the beginning. The changes Facebook will roll out on Thursday are designed to enhance the emotional connection its users have to each other through Facebook. These changes will make Facebook a place where nearly everything in your life is enhanced by your social graph. These changes will make it so you know your friends better than you ever thought you could. On Thursday, developers will be elated, users will be shellshocked and the competition will look ancient. On Thursday, Facebook will be reborn. Prepare yourselves for the evolution of social networking.

Promoting Events Electronic Arts U.K. hosted a “Play4Xmas” tour at six different shopping malls across the UK in November and December. Those who checked in at each event had a chance to win up to 10 games per day.

Ambush Marketing Instead of paying an arm and a leg for an exhibition table at the ITB Berlin (the world’s largest travel tradeshow), Germanwings used Facebook Places to create check-ins at each one of its competitors at the fair. When someone checked in at an airline’s booth, their status update would read something like “Air France: France for a bargain price is only available from Germanwings” thanks to their hidden messages.

Facebook Places provides viral marketing for a company since every check-in shows up in the news feed of the user’s friends. It allows businesses to create incentives for those who come to their physical location or events.

“If print culture shaped the environment from which the Enlightenment blossomed and set the scene for the Industrial Revolution, participatory media might similarly forge the cognitive and social environments in which 21st-century life will take place.”

the “literacy of participation,” and I guess this consists of the social norms of social media. What are they, and why are they so important?

Google+ is already indexed and searched by Google, making marketing searches much easier than other platforms. Just drop “site:plus.google.com” before any search in Google, and you’ll see what people are saying about you inside the platform.

Don’t think “social network.” Think “communications backbone.” This tool allows for private collaboration (privacy is much easier to understand here, but it does require some learning), and permits a “one stop” kind of area for talking internally and externally without causing problems. And it works with email, not in lieu of email.

Google+ evolves from Gmail. No matter what the kiddies say, email is still the digital communications backbone of the modern world. SMS might feel like second place, but it’s a distant second. Google+ is very tied to Gmail, with hundreds of millions of users. It feels very natural as an extension in a way that Twitter and Facebook do not.

Facebook.

Typical instructional design and pedagogy focus on breaking down a subject into component parts, gaining mastery of those parts, whether they are steps in a process or techniques or parts of the anatomy, and then reassembling them in the learner's mind and in practice so that the result is overall mastery of the broader subject. That may be oversimplified, but this basic approach goes back to Aristotle, at least. It's not debated in education, it's assumed that this is the best approach for learning anything, including complex processes or highly nuanced behaviors in shifting contexts.

Centola's conclusions. He studied positive changes in people's behaviors regarding health care, changes that resulted directly from placing subjects in carefully designed social networks with the goal of improving their health decisions. What he concluded was that smaller, tighter social groups had more success improving health behaviors than larger, looser social groups (ie, the typical Facebook connections). Maybe you already see what it took me a while to notice. Both of them had success. Social networks designed for a specific purpose can do something pretty amazing: They can change people's behaviors. Any educator or trainer whose goal is actually to impact both thinking and behaviors (to change lives!) rather than just getting people to pass a test or check a box, should be paying close attention. And maybe getting a little excited.Researchers in education have long known the power of social groups to alter behavior. Brown, Collins, and Duguid made this case a while back

these three went on to say that highly complex behaviors are picked up, absorbed, through relatively informal social exchange more quickly than they could be if they were "taught" in the usual break-it-down sense. We're talking about complex behaviors. Processes. Highly nuanced interpersonal interactions. Centola's study suggests to me that we now have an online tool, the social network, that is fully capable of carrying the power of culture to shape behaviors and establish norms. And it can be done on purpose.

the best iPhone QR Code application or apps is a close race between Optiscan – QR code scanner and generator and QuickMark QR Code Reader 4. Both apps are great with QuickMark with a slight edge over Optiscan due to additional features and linking to online profiles.But if you’re looking for a location-based check-in app that works with Facebook Places, Foursquare, and Gowalla, that also includes a QR Code Reader, then give TriOut a … try!

Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses. If you want to lead a team or be a part of one, with an eye towards leveraging social media, it’s good to examine which roles people can play as part of that team. Marketing your site means putting the right people in place.

Teachers across the country have been incorporating Twitter into classrooms for a few years, but the site's adoption by educational institutions appears to be limited. A survey of 1,920 U.S. teachers published in April found that 2% of them use the micro-blogging site in college lectures. About half those polled said the use of Twitter and Facebook in class is harmful to the learning experience, according to the study from consulting firm Pearson Learning Solutions. Still, Legaspi is hopeful. When he explained the plan to his students at Hollenbeck Middle School in East Los Angeles, he learned that only one of them had used Twitter. But most, he said, live on their phones. So getting them started wasn't difficult.

Legaspi said shy students are benefiting the most. For "a lot of them, what it did is help find their voice," he said. "I have many students that do not participate in my classes or share what's on their mind, so Twitter became that vehicle." Several students praised the new approach. "It's a great way to get people to notice you," said Oscar Lozoria, a shy 14-year-old with long hair that other students used to tease him about. He said Twitter has changed how his peers view him. "They see me as somebody now -- as an equal," he said. Ivan Sabaria, also 14, said Twitter makes learning more fun. "I'm paying attention and doing all my work," he said.

Occasionally, the students will type in something inappropriate during class. Still, Legaspi is convinced he has discovered the future of education. "I get feedback on the spot. Not only that, all the students can see what they're sharing," he said. "This is powerful."