Need another reason why your business should have a Foursquare Venue Page? Take this one to your boss, or whoever else is stone-walling your efforts to provide your company the most cost-effective methods of getting your business in front of more people.

Bing is developing a system to provide access to real-time Foursqaure check-ins and to-do lists within their maps feature. Now people will be able to see what others are saying about different places on the map. Bing is positioning this as: “An interactive day planner, designed to help find the best things to do in that area.”

Very interesting note: They’re also developing a way to rank tips based on the user’s reputation. Foursquare users unlocking more achievement badges and checking in more frequently will be able to boost their own authority.

Appears a deal like this will create more ways to connect with your network, better ways to find current user opinions & reviews and even more ways for businesses to leverage social media optimization strategies.

Does your business have a venue page? How are you using it?

Have you noticed the new changes to Google’s home page?

No more underlined links, lighter blue font, larger buttons, no drop shadow in the logo and search settings have moved to the top. Note: It looks like this is being rolled out in different areas and/or at different times of the day.

Google make changes like these based on a ton of research and testing.

• New Google Home Page (now)
• Old Google Home Page (last year)
• Very Old Google Home page (1998)
• New Search Results Pages

Have you seen it yet? What do you think? Does it make a difference?

By now, you may have noticed the newest sharing button to compliment the Tweetmeme & Facebook sharing icons. Thanks to Mashable, there is now a Google Buzz WordPress Plugin as well – they’ve made all three of these the must-have icons for simple sharing.

1. Within your admin panel, search the plugin library for Google Buzz Button
   
2. Click install
3. Under settings, click Google Buzz to adjust the properties (only four edits allowed for now)

One option missing that may appear in future updates: The ability to choose left/right & float positioning. For now, you’re stuck with top or bottom, on the left. (Unless you choose the manual insertion method & want to edit the code yourself.)

Its still early and the jury is still out on buzz. However, its Google and they did a good job of responding to the privacy and bug issues. Its another place to distribute content. So why not leverage it and create some buzz?

Which WordPress social/sharing plugin do you prefer?

Image via Wikipedia

Lego released the official Lego iPhone app. which lets you instantly create a Lego image mosaic from a new picture or an existing image on your phone.

Interface is extremely easy – only three buttons; once your image is loaded, simply touch the screen to change colors. Neat idea for image customization, not too much excitement beyond that. Still holding my breath for an actual Lego brick builder app.

Here’s a couple of app screenshots, my son & a personal favorite – me & Joe Jackson.

The current Global Climate Summit in Copenhagen is filled with world leaders looking to find solutions to help our planet’s environment.

How can anyone take them, or their message, seriously when they request 1200 limousines for the event? Skip to 4:25 in Jon Stewart’s segment from The Daily Show to see the full story. Better yet, watch the whole clip.

What really killed Darth Vader

Posted via web from Eric’s Ramblings