Facebook Newsfeed Changes – How they Work

Facebook is rolling our changes faster than the Indian Ocean’s waves roll in to our beautiful Durban beaches and I’m dancing as fast as I can to try to keep up.

You see I’m one of those over-achieving, aging mlungus* (some say I’m a bit of a control freak – I deny this emphatically) and I like to know what I’m dealing with and to have a good grasp of it. But this is like trying to build a wall with bricks of jelly.

So let’s look at the overall picture – in spite of all the changes, which will certainly give us a better and more efficient Facebook experience – I can still go on with Facebook as usual. That is a plus. The fact that I feel inadequate because I don’t know every single feature of all the new changes is something I will discuss with my therapist.

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Social Media and other Online Tools to Deal with the Rapture

Well off course I have to make sure my pets are ok after the Rapture on 21  May. Thanks to the great article by Mvelase Peppetta on Memeburn 4 social media tools and tips for the Rapture, I think I'm prepared.

I am a bit worried though about my two cats, Maya and Billy. The Athiests who promise to look after the "Eternal Earth bound pets" when I take my "step up to Jesus", are all in the USA. I wonder if there are any in South Africa? But this is sort of an academic discussion because I won't really be going up to Jesus on 21 May. But what if I were? I looked a bit further and found some dire predictions:

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Facebook Page and Profile Banners

Your Facebook Page is starting to look good, but the banner spaces at the top picture bar look terrible because you just don’t have enough photos that are interesting.

In order for your Facebook Page banner to look really interesting you need to post horizontal shaped photos to your Page and then try to sort them when they appear in the banner.

Few people have enough great pictures to make their banner look really interesting, which means that this important element of the Facebook Page often looks a bit of a mess.

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Rank Skills of Friends and Contacts on Mixtent

I got an email this morning that a friend just voted for me on Mixtent. Well I’ll take any vote I can get, so I clicked the link and headed off to find out about a new social media startup.

Mixtent is a social skill ranking website and the core goal of Mixtent, according to Jonathan Geller, its co-founder, is “to aggregate granular professional recommendations in order to build a professional reputation graph with the vision of helping people hire and get hired.”

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Social Media Course Kicks Off

We couldn't have found a better location than The Benjamin in Florida Road in Durban to run our first Social Media Course.

Not only is the room comfortable – in Durban this time of the year, this translates as "the aircon works well" – but the staff are really friendly and helpful and the refreshments are plentiful and really good.

Day one started with Geraldine Somerset's Linked in in the morning and my (Karen Lotter)'s Blogging in the afternoon.

Day 1 Social Media Course

The numbers grew from the morning with two more delegates joining us for the blogging module.

As we spent most of the almost fours hours establishing blogs, I believe the real value of the course will emerge during the three months back-up we provide at The Learning Zone. (Together with the extensive course notes).

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