Welcome back to the Friday 5, my choices for the best links in social media. This week we didn’t have any dominant social media news like last week’s Facebook Places announcement, so I thought stick to some practical tips and a bit of interesting news from Diaspora, the Facebook alternative being coded by four NYU grads.

Here we go:

• Top 5 Ways Big Brands are Using Foursquare – Mashable.
• An Overdue Update – Join Diaspora Blog.
• Altimeter Report: The 8 Success Criteria For Facebook Page Marketing- Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang.
• 5 Google Analytics metrics that can help improve your blog – Communications Conversations
• Now QR Codes Can Generate Likes On Facebook – All Things Facebook.

Photo by The Truth About… on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

Been on an extended vacation and consequently so has the Friday 5. It’s good to be back and share some of my favorite social media links from the past month or so.

• XKCD-Inspired Cartoon Maps the World’s Social Networks. Mashable.
• The Ten Secrets of a Successful Social Media Blog. Jeff Bullas Blog.
• What makes a tweet influential? The HP Blog Hub.
• Creative commons and facilitating mashups to spread your ideas. David Meerman Scott, Web Ink Now Blog.
• 60 Ways to Increase Your Influence Online. Sam Rosen, Copyblogger Blog.

Welcome to the latest installment of the Friday 5. Facebook was still trying to get out from under the cloud of bad publicity regarding its privacy tools this week. The update was an improvement, but still needs a lot of work to simplify it even further. In yet another bizarre episode, however, the San Francisco Weekly explains the strange insignia spied on Zuckerberg’s hoodie.

Meanwhile Facebook and Yahoo! announced a deal to play together, while  Twitter announced a new link policy it will implement over the coming months. In a bizarre announcement, Viacom, the owners of MTV, basically put a gag order on its employees regarding personal blogging. Not sure how well that will go down with the courts, but I guess we have to wait and see.

Not quite as dramatic as a Zuckerberg meltdown, but still another interesting week in the ever evolving world of online social media.

• Yahoo! strikes deal with Facebook in bid to be the ‘largest social network’ in the world, Emma Barnett, Telegraph UK.
• Twitter to Change Links and How They Are Displayed,  Ben Parr, Mashable.
• Zuckerberg’s Bizarre Facebook Insignia Revealed, And What It Means, Alexia Tsotsis, SF Weekly.
• Facebook hopes new privacy page can quell unrest, Sharon Gaudin, Computerworld.
• Viacom/MTV Issues Intense Employee Gag Order, Basically Takes Ownership of Blogs, Thoughts , Joe Coscarelli, Village Voice

Welcome back to another Friday 5. We’ve seen FourSquare mature a bit this week and Facebook continue to take hits. A group of NYU students took direct aim at the social media giant by trying to establish an open source social media platform that actually respects your privacy and security. Imagine that. As though, they needed more fuel for their trek, Mashable reported this morning that Facebook and others were caught selling user data (actual user data) to advertising platforms.

With all that as a social media backdrop, let’s take a look this week’s five links in social media:

• Three Training Tips to Become a Better Blogger by James Chartrand on Copyblogger
• Twitter for iPhone Now Live in the App Store by Christina Warren on Mashable
• Why we need to kill “social media” by Rob Key on iMediaConnection.com
• Facebook Apologists Miss the Point: Facebook Isn’t the Future by Stowe Boyd on StoweBoyd.com.
• And finally, something new this week, a link to a social tool. This week, I recommend Micropoll.com, which lets you create a poll and embed it in your blog or web site. It’s simple to use and it’s free.

Saw Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea,  last night and he said one thing that struck me as social media blogger. He was discussing kids and he said too many of us want our little ones socialized on the Internet, but what kids really need is to go outside and PLAY. I totally agree. I love social media, but kids do need to play. There’ll be plenty of time social media when they get older. On that note, let’s look at this week’s five links in social media.

• LinkedIn Gives Users the Ability to Follow Companies by Ben Parr, Mashable.
• 10 Reasons Not to Ignore Your Blog for Facebook by Lisa Barone, Small Business Trends.
• How to Get an Influencer’s Attention by Tamar Weinberg, Techipedia.
• 21 Twitter Tips for Socially Savvy Companies by Brian Solis, FastCompany.
• The Age of Facebook by Michael Arrington, TechCrunch.

Photo by Aquera on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

Last Fall, Google published a video explaining how it ranks articles within Google News. This video is full of valuable information. Remember, this is devoted specifically to the Google News results, as opposed to regular Google Search, but bloggers can gain a valuable understanding of the inner workings of the Google News Bot by taking 15 minutes to watch this video.

Many people struggle with ideas for blogs. One good way to add content to your blog is to use video. And no, you don’t have to make the video yourself. You can use ones that are available for sharing on YouTube or the TED video series (which I highly recommend).

The great thing about using video is that somebody else creates the content for you. You just act as a go-between to share the content. I generally add a paragraph or two explaining why I like the particular post, drop in the video and I’m done.

The one thing that you might find hard about sharing video, is getting it into the post because it sometimes requires opening the HTML tab of your Blogging editor. It’s not as intimidating as it sounds. Just follow these simple steps.

1. Copy the embed code. It’s clearly labeled on the right side of every YouTube screen. In fact, if you’re not familiar with it, you might have wondered what it was, but it’s the code that lets you display and play the video inside your blog post. Don’t be afraid of the code. You just copy it and it paste it. (For TED and other videos look for embed code after video plays or look for a Sharing symbol to reveal the code.)
2. Open your blog post. Give it a title and write your introductory text.
3. Open your HTML tab, add a couple of returns and paste that embed code you copied in Step 1.
4. Save your post as a draft and give it a test run to make sure you’ve embedded it correctly.
5. Publish your post.

That’s it. You’ve got a nice post and I’ve found that these shared videos are often very popular. Give it a shot. You’ll be glad you did.

Photo by Jonnson on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

Another week for the Friday Five in social media. My favorite this week comes courtesy of my sister-in-law in Australia who sent me an article on an Australian bank that seemed unhappy with its profitable quarter and chose to Tweet about it. The public responded (as only Aussies can). I believe it speaks directly to how social media tools have become part of the mainstream of how we communicate (even with banks and corporations).

Without further adieu, this week’s links:

* Westpac Bank writes ‘Oh So Very Over It’ on Twitter Account by Cameron Atfield, Brisbane Times.

* Google Buzz Monitoring by Rick Klau, Rick Klau’s Weblog.

* 20 Inspiring Women to Follow on Twitter by Halle Tecco, Forbes.com

* The Sex and the City Guide to Blogging by (our very own) Julie Roads, Copyblogger.

* Seth Godin Should Read His Own Book by Mark Cuban, Blog Maverick Blog

Photo by pvsbond on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.

So many blogs, so little time! How do you find the best ones?

I’m working on a project right now where I need to find the top blogs for a number of different topics. And it’s not as easy as you’d think. There isn’t one place that categorizes all blogs or top blogs or best blogs in terms of traffic, rank, subscribers and social media reach.

And, interestingly, Google isn’t really cutting it. I’ve found that blogs that end up on the first page of my Google search returns aren’t necessarily highly trafficked. When I tweeted my request for a way to find top blogs, many people said, ‘Use Google!’ But Google ranks based on how many people are linking to a particular post, not the site itself. So if you type in ‘NVidia blue screen error’, you will find a specific blog post on the subject at the top of the results. Doesn’t mean the blog that post lives on is a top ranked blog, but that post is. Google isn’t measuring popularity to the site, it’s measuring traffic to the page (among other things).

Below, you’ll find a list of other sites that can help with this task – but none of them are spectacular. And you can’t take what they say as gospel. You’ll need to install the Alexa toolbar, check each blog’s posts for comment numbers and ask around to get the full picture.

• Technorati
• Delightful Blogs
• alltop
• PopURLS
• Scribnia

So…if anyone’s looking for a great business idea. Please make the ultimate blog ranking and discovery site – ‘kay? Thanks…

Image credit: Dan is awesome

Welcome once again to the Friday 5 links in social media, the Valentine’s Day edition, because we all know that social media is near and dear to your heart.

• 5 Google Buzz Tips for the Advanced User by Sarah Perez, ReadWriteWeb.
• Twitter Search and Money by Chris Brogan, American Express OpenForum.
• Web Strategy Matrix: Google Buzz v. V. Facebook v.  MySpace v. Twitter by Jeremiah Owyang, Web Strategy Blog.
• You Can’t Take the Personal Out of Blogging by Lisa Barone, Outspoken Media Blog.
• Are my Blog and I Breaking Up? by Andrew G.R., The Blog Herald

Photo by T’eresa on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License.