Virtual introductions are extremely common. Gone are the days of waiting for a big event to have an opportunity to introduce yourself to a possible client, future business partner, or other professional connection. You can instantly be introduced to others through email or any variety of social networking website.

When introducing yourself virtually, you should always answer the following three questions:

- Who are you?
- Why are you contacting them?
- What do you need?

Your virtual introduction is the same opportunity you would have in person to make a good first impression. Unfortunately, many people feel that the laid-back culture of the web means you can throw together any random combination of words and consider yourself introduced. That is far from the truth.

Whether you are reaching out to a co-worker you have never met, or trying to connect to a stranger, you need to give your words thought. Here are a few pointers on making a good virtual first impression.

Who are you?
Sounds redundant, but you’d be shocked how many people fail to give this information in virtual introductions. Just because someone works at the same company as you, has a similar professional circle, or follows you on Twitter does not mean they know who you are. To assume they do can come across as arrogant. Before you jump into the heart of things, say hello then tell them your name and title.

Why are you contacting them?
You might need to relay information to them for a big project. Possibly, you are wondering if they could connect you to a new lead for your business. You might even just admire their professional work and want to connect for that reason. If you don’t tell them why you are contacting them, they won’t know. Instead of reading your message and thinking “I’m glad “your name here” reached out”, they’ll think “why is “your name here”bothering me”.

What do you need?
Never leave a virtual introduction open ended. Always state the action item you sought in making the introduction. If you need something from the person, like information or assistance, you should ask for it. Don’t be rude or demanding. Do it with a soft and genuine tone. They’ve taken the time to read your message, but you can’t expect them to read your mind.

Do you answer all three questions when you introduce yourself to someone virtually?

Virtual Contact takes all the functionalities one would expect from the Twitter platform and takes them a step further.

With Virtual Contact, Twitter is literally pushed beyond its limits and turns into the tool of choice for those who are active on multiple networks.

Here are some of the perks it offers:

– Manage multiple Twitter accounts simultaneously
– Manage automatic tweets (automatic-messages)
– Shorten your URLs
– Publish images and videos
– Send direct messages through Twitter’s internal messenger service
– Available on 4 different platforms for your convenience:
– Blackberry PLAYBOOK
– Apple iPad
– ANDROID TABLETS
– WINDOWS.

As Virtual Contact is new on the market, twitter is the first client we’ve decided to take above and beyond in this fashion but as the world of social media grows, other platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn and others are in the works.

BlackBerry App World ™ gave Virtual Contact a top rating of 4.5/5 stars and thousands have since become satisfied users of our application.

Here are some reviews from satisfied customers:

– “I have tried a few of the others, but this one is powerful yet really easy to use.”
– “Very nice twitter client with good features and multi-account support.”
– “about time we got a decent twitter client.”
– “Can’t complain about a free twitter app that gives you all this functionality Twitter as well as managing multiple accounts at the same time. Also has auto messaging which is good for business! I’m happy with it so far. Thanks for making it free too…”

How did we come up with this idea? Our initial goal was to design tools to help make life easier for active Internet users such as the self-starting Web entrepreneurs, bloggers and journalists.

Through our research, the conclusion reached was a simple one: the users of our software are in the best position to convey us their needs and expectations as to what our software should be.

So, we’ve listened and we’re inviting you to take part in a very interesting experiment: we’re developing a Web 2.0-style program and we’re inviting you to give us your suggestions, comments and critics through Twitter and Facebook.

As we improve the software, your feedback will guide us and help us adjust and develop its functionalities for future updates. You’ll have front row seats to see our work taking place.

This is a golden opportunity for you to have your voice heard and get customized solutions to your problems…And it’s as easy as following us on Facebook or Twitter.

You can also find reviews of virtual contact in crackberry.com at:
http://crackberry.com/virtual-contact-twitter-your-blackberry-playbook

You can also look us up at

twitter: virtual_contact
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/virtualcontact
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/vrtlcntct

So if you need your twitter to work as fast and efficiently as you do, give us a try, you get all the advantages mentioned above, you’ll play a role in improving the overall program for all of us and best of all, it’s free !

I have been using the Facebook Blackberry app ‘Chit Chat’ on my Blackberry Curve 8520 for a while now and thought it was about time to write a full review of it. I am quite a heavy Facebook user, and the main reason I decided to install the Chit Chat application on my Blackberry was because I wanted to be able to chat to all my Facebook contacts that are signed in to Facebook chat, but during times when I wasn’t using a computer – such as when I am out in the park walking my dog, on the bus into town, or if I am ever stuck in a boring waiting room and there are no interesting magazines to read.

Before I go on too much further, I should mention here that I am also a somewhat experienced user of the Windows Facebook desktop version of Chit Chat – I have had that version installed on my laptop now for a good few months before I using Chit Chat for Blackberry for the first time, so I was surprised at how different it looked from the Windows PC version. Unlike Chit Chat for Windows, which is a pale blue colour and looks very similar to MSN chat in its appearance, the Facebook Chat Blackberry version is a very nice bright green colour.

I am not saying this like it’s a bad thing, though. In fact, in some ways I would say that the Blackberry version of Chit Chat is even easier to use and better-looking than the PC version.

The first thing that will happen when you install and run Chit Chat on your Blackberry is that it will ask you for your Facebook username and password – this can be confusing, and if you haven’t already set up a Facebook username (not to be confused with your email address login!) then you will need to do so before you can use Chit Chat. It is not hard to do, and if you haven’t already done it there will be instructions provided to help you get set up. In fact the only thing that I found really hard at this point was reading the absolutely tiny text when you log in! From there on in though it’s all pretty straightforward.

Once logged in, Chit Chat will take you to a simple green screen which displays a list of all your signed in Facebook buddies. I am on Facebook quite a lot so my list is rather big (!) but it was easy to scroll up and down it using the trackball on my Blackberry to see who was online. I noticed that it added new contacts at the bottom of the list, not by alphabetised surname or anything, but I suppose this makes more sense because this way you can easily check if anyone new has signed in.

As I work irregular hours compared to a lot of my friends (who are in 9-5 office jobs) it was good to be able to chat to them from out and about on my blackberry (while they’re stuck indoors!). The chat window was very easy and straightforward to use, and if you want, a notification noise will play for each new message you receive. I prefer to have my phone silent but it is not difficult to set this up, you just go into the preferences.

I have tried Chit Chat both outdoors and at home and found that it is as quick to use as on a PC. There doesn’t seem to be any noticeable lag between messages and some of my friends were even surprised when I told them I was outdoors. I also found it was easy and straightforward to have more than one chat running at the same time.

When you are done using Chit Chat, it’s also very easy to close down (unlike some other Blackberry apps I could mention!). To log out, you simply press the button next to the central trackball and it will give you the option to log out, or to run Chit Chat quietly in the background, which I also like to do sometimes so I can be surprised by a chat message later on when I’m bored.

Chit Chat does run down your Blackberry life a little, however it’s got no more impact really than most games I’ve played on my Blackberry. In summary, if you would like to be able to chat to all your Facebook chat buddies, but are not always able to access a computer then I would totally recommend Chit Chat for Facebook Blackberry as a cheap and easy way of keeping in touch with them.

Take a look at the screen capture above. You can now click on the little camera icon on the left side of the Tweet box and upload an image. Then, when you tweet, your tweet will include an image link to the photo or screen capture that you have uploaded. It’s hosted on pic.twitter.com for you.

When your tweet is posted, here is what it looks like:

As you can see, I went ahead and used that image as an example, and actually tweeted about it on Twitter to see exactly what it looks like.

When you use an image in your tweet, I do have a few recommendations:
- Make sure that the image isn’t too small, as people do like to see larger photos rather than thumbnails. I personally like to resize my photos or screen captures anywhere between 300 width and about 1000 width max.
- I have not checked on the file size yet, but I would imagine that your photo from your 14 megapixel camera is probably going to be too large to tweet. You might want to resize it first. Besides, it may just take too long to upload it.
- When you add a tweet, keep in mind that a link to the photo URL is going to be added automatically to your Tweet. So, you may want to keep the text in your Tweet a bit shorter than usual.

As I mentioned above, it appears that the photo is being hosted on http://pic.twitter.com. However, if you mouseover the URL and watch the actual link and where you’re taken, it goes to http://t.co and then to your actual Tweet, with the larger image. It just doesn’t make sense that Twitter would add a URL that’s then a redirect that then redirects back to twitter.com. That’s too many redirects!

Take a look at what happens when you go to your pic.twitter.com image URL:

Parameters:
URL = http://pic.twitter.com/JSDYArO
UAG = Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:5.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/5.0
AEN =
REQ = GET ; VER = 1.1 ; FMT = AUTO
Sending request:

GET /JSDYArO HTTP/1.1
Host: pic.twitter.com
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:5.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/5.0
Connection: close

• Finding host IP address…
• Host IP address = 199.59.148.12
• Finding TCP protocol…
• Binding to local socket…
• Connecting to host…
• Sending request…
• Waiting for response…
Receiving Header:
HTTP/1.1·301·Moved·Permanently
Date:·Tue,·09·Aug·2011·20:40:58·GMT
Server:·hi
Location:·http://twitter.com/bhartzer/status/101026516720304128/photo/1
Cache-Control:·private,max-age=300
Expires:·Tue,·09·Aug·2011·20:45:58·GMT
Content-Length:·0
Connection:·close
Content-Type:·text/html;·charset=UTF-8

At least they’re using a 301 Permanent Redirect to do the redirect over to your Twitter status URL.

On a sidenote, it does not look like any images or photos are being indexed on http://pic.twitter.com (yet) in Google’s search engine.

I’m sure this may change in the future, but currently only posts from Google Buzz are getting indexed in the Google search results within seconds. If you post something on Google Buzz, it will then be posted to Google’s real-time search results. Posting to Google+ will NOT get it indexed in Google’s real-time search results, and I am “pretty sure” at this point that Google+ posts are not getting indexed.

Update August 3, 2011 I previously posted (original post shown below) that all of the Google+ Plus posts were not getting indexed. Google has, in fact, changed the title tags of posts recently, thus changing one of the ways that they can be found in Google’s search results. The following search will show them in the search results:

At this time, it still appears that there are only about 100 Google+ Plus posts being indexed every hour or so. A hat tip goes out to Greg Boggs for pointing out some of the recent changes and keeping me updated.

So far, I have to admit that I am a pretty big fan of Google+, the new social network by Google. I’ve posted quit a bit about various Google+ features, posted a Google+ review, and even written about how to get your Google+ posts to show up well in the Google search results. But unfortunately that appears to have been stopped, by Google themselves. For some reason, without any sort of public notice, Google has stopped indexing Google+ Plus posts.

Take a look at the screen capture above and you will see what I mean. Google+ Plus posts that are marked as “Public” have traditionally been indexed in Google’s search results if they met certain criteria. It has been my observation that Google+ Plus public posts were treated as any other web page, whereas a page has to have enough unique content on it or be important enough to get indexed.

But Google, for whatever reason, has quietly decided to stop indexing their Google+ Plus posts, with no posts being indexed within the past week. I had previously observed that Google was indexing about 200 to 300 posts an hour, but that has now stopped. There are, by the way, still about 22,000 Google+ Plus posts indexed in Google. I am surprised that those posts have remained in the Google search engine index.

I did take a look at Google’s robots.txt file for Google+Plus, which is located here on their site. I’m curious to know why they would want to disallow indexing of the directory that they’re disallowing–which is an underscore. It appears that there is no content there in that directory, so why disallow it from indexing?

So, why would Google choose to stop indexing posts? After all, it is unique content that is being posted directly on Google’s own website. Why not take advantage of all that content? The posts were marked as “Public”, so I see no reason why they would want to stop indexing them.

My only speculation at this point is that Google may be getting ready to bring back the “real time” search results, as previously they had access to the Twitter firehose of Tweets, and were displaying them in real time in the search results. Once they open Google+ Plus to the public and more people continue to embrace Google+ as a social networking site, they may start indexing Google+ Plus posts. But for now, we’re left with only being able to use Google to search Google+ Plus profiles.

To start off with, Google+ frowns upon using a name other than a person’s name for your Google+ page (this action may even get your account suspended which in turn may affect other Google products associated with your Gmail address). Therefore, the best businesses to market on Google+ are those where YOU are the product, or you are branding yourself as the lead of the business. Here are some businesses that would do well with marketing on Google+:

– Consultants
– Realtors
– Doctors
– Lawyers
– Dentists
– Authors
– Publishers
– Gurus / Experts
– Businesses Where YOU Are The Product Or Brand

Essentially, any business where you are branding yourself, or ones where you want people to think about your business whenever they see you would be just right. It should also be noted that Google+ works extremely well for those who wish to market themselves as an expert in a field (such as internet marketing, construction, health and fitness, etc.). With Google+ being a social network, it would only be logical that you talk about or discuss your business on your profile page. As long as your marketing efforts appear to be a natural extension of what you would do in real life everything should work out just fine. For an excellent example of “marketing without the appearance of marketing” check out Chris Pirillo’s Google+ profile page. There are many topics that could be covered when talking about marketing on Google+. In order to avoid information overload, this blog post will focus on using pictures in your profile, and in your photo gallery.

Whenever someone checks out your profile picture on your Google+ profile page, there should be two things they should be able to get from looking at it – what kind of image you project in real life, and how you want to position yourself, and your business in society. In regards to image, you want your picture to convey the kind of person people would meet when they stop by to visit you at your business. For example, lets imagine that we have three different consultants: a marketing consultant, an internet marketing consultant, and an investment advisor. For the marketing consultant, the picture that they would use should show that the consultant is sincere about their business without appearing too serious or dogmatic. However, since a marketing consultant has to work to stay on the cutting edge of the marketing industry, the profile picture should also reflect a spirit of innovation. In order to show an innovative side, the consultant could hold up an unusual marketing product that people would want to know more about. The overall look would be something that catches the eye without going overboard.

The internet marketing consultant, on the other hand, would take a slightly different approach in regards to choosing their profile picture. The overall message their profile picture needs to convey would be “I can help you make your business a huge success on the internet”. An unusual background image might work well, or a thought provoking background setting showing where a potential client could end up if they followed the advice of the internet marketing consultant. Some profile pictue ideas for the internet marketing consultant would be: the consultant shown sitting in a lawn chair on the beach at a lavish resort, or behind the wheel of an expensive automobile, or perhaps standing on the patio of an exquisite mansion, and so forth.

For the investment advisor, the picture should convey trust. The words on the profile page will help to describe what the consultant can do for their clients, but the picture, at a glance, should instill a feeling of honesty, integrity, and trustworthiness without being boring. The profile picture is definitely important, but what is also almost equally important are the pictures in your photo gallery.

Even though you’ll mostly be using your Google+ profile to promote your business, you will still need pictures in your photo gallery to help give people a REASON to visit your profile (unless they already know you). With Google+ you can choose which pictures are displayed at the top of your profile, which will be helpful in giving you something that people can make comments on. In regards to what type of pictures to use in your photo gallery, let’s look back at our three fictious examples. For the marketing consultant, it would probably be best to use pictures of ads that the marketing consultant either created, or ads that have been very successful regardless of who put them together. In the description, the marketing consultant can describe what makes that particular ad effective or not effective, or perhaps a funny caption or annecdote.

The internet marketing consultant would want to add some interesting and / or funny pictures to their Google+ photo gallery, but this would also be a great time to put in some useful diagrams. For instance, a chart explaining the latest evolution of the online marketing sales funnel which shows how consumers use the internet to research, and ultimately choose which businesses they do business with would be a great picture to add to the internet marketing consultant’s photo gallery.

The investment consultant could put up charts, and graphs to show where the stock market will be within the next 10 years, return rates for basic investments, or even a simple graph showing how much money someone could have made if they had made a $10,000 investment at 20, 30, or 60 years old. Also, since the investment consultant is wanting to convey a feeling of trust, integrity, and stability, it might be wise to put up a few family photos as well. Professionally done group family photos tend to create an aura of stability – even if that is not actually true in real life.

Once the pictures have been uploaded to the Google+ photo gallery, you can start posting links to your pictures as status updates using headings to make it all look natural. For example, using the “$10,000 investment over time” picture as an example, a link to the picture could be posted in the investment consultant’s status bar with a headline that reads “If only people realized how much money they could have saved up if they started saving earlier…”. Also, creating status updates will make it much easier for others to know what kind of content you have available on your profile, and hopefully entice them to make comments on your pictures. The comments made by those people will be available for viewing by the people in their circles, who will also make comments. All of these comments will eventually lead to driving more traffic to your profile. As illustrated in the above scenario, a very strong domino effect can easily be created by simply posting pictures, and making mentions of those pictures in your status updates.

You can also post links to pictures from other websites in your status box to accomplish the same thing. They do not have to be pictures directly related to what you do. If you can find something thought provoking or controversial, that will work as well. Just be sure it is something that you wouldn’t mind being associated with (remember: Google+ may be a social network, but its still a social network run by Google – the world’s largest search engine at the present time).

The general idea with pictures on your profile is that they should get your point across without having to spend a lot of time explaining them, even on the pictures that are in your gallery. People should be able to understand why you have that picture there with or without the short summary. With that being said, controversial pictures should be mainly used to draw attention to your profile, and therefore should just be picture links shared in your status updates. Use other less provocative pictures within your photo gallery to build and support your branding. This, of course, does not apply to you if the business image that you want to project is a controversial one. Either way, use your photo gallery to house pictures that directly reflect your business. Remember: the cute puppy in the window gets the people into your store, but what actual things your store has to offer should be the main topic of conversation.

If done right, you can drive tons of highly targeted traffic to your profile with just a few simple pictures, and status updates. Just keep in mind – a picture is worth a thousand words, so make sure that the pictures that you choose to utilize in your marketing efforts say the right things about you, and your business.

Disclaimer: Please note: If your Google+ account is suspended for ANY reason, it may adversely affect your other Google related products (ex: your corresponding Youtube account could also get suspended).

Google recently launched Google Plus, Google’s competitor to Facebook. Just like in Facebook and on Twitter, you can follow other people. In Facebook, we have Facebook Friends. On Twitter, you have friends and followers. On Google+ Plus, you can add someone to your Circle. On your profile (you can see my profile at http://gplus.to/bhartzer), you can see how many people that person has in their circle and how many people have added them to their circle. In other words, you can see how many people are following someone (or added them to their circle) and see how popular that person is.

There has been some backlash recently over this, and some of the more popular users have decided to stop showing the number of people they have in their circle and the number of people that have them in their circle. I personally don’t have a problem showing how many people I’m following and how many people have me in their circle (or who specifically is following me).

On Twitter, however, the follow counts and follower counts have been like a game, with many people trying to get more followers than others. The media even made a big deal over who was the first person to get over 1,000,000 followers on Twitter. Now several people and several corporations have over 1,000,000 followers. It’s not a big deal.

In Google Plus, there is a pretty new option: you can stop people from seeing your follow counts publicly. You can specifically decide if you want to show who you have in your Circle and who has added you to their Circle. If you are interested in doing this, here is how you remove the circle counts in Google+ Plus.

First, you need to go to your profile. My profile is located at http://gplus.to/bhartzer

Once you are at your profile, follow these steps:

1. Click on Edit Profile.

2. On the left side, you will see “In Bill’s Circles” (where Bill is your name).

3. Click on the little World Globe symbol to edit.

4. You will see the popup above.

If you want to show people in all circles, then select the checkbox. You might only want to show certain counts in certain circles.

If you want to show people who have added you to circles, then select the checkbox. Otherwise, if you want to stop all of the circle counts from showing publicly, then uncheck both boxes.

So, it’s really up to you. I have to be honest, and tell you that I personally prefer to show all of the numbers. I think that’s really the best policy, to be as completely transparent as possible.

SortPrice was one of the first companies to offer e-commerce solutions on Facebook. SortPrice launched the Merchant Application in October 2008 and have since built Facebook stores for more than 1,500 retailers of every size and scope. Along the way, the application has received numerous glowing reviews in the media, putting SortPrice squarely on the leading edge of the social media integration movement taking place in the e-commerce industry.

Version 2.0 builds on that success and offers retailers even more customization options designed to help them build a Facebook presence that is more consistent with their existing websites, along with some new features that spur interaction and fan-building on Facebook.

SortPrice’s Store Application 2.0 takes all of the great features that have helped it become one of the industry’s most popular and successful ‘F-commerce’ resources and adds a host of new customization options that can take a retailer’s Facebook presence to a whole new level. What’s more, since the application is still a free add-on for any retailer that lists products on SortPrice.com, it’s also the most cost-effective resource out there.

“At this point, selling on Facebook has evolved from an option to a must for any retailer that’s serious about the success of their business,” said Asaf Klibansky, SortPrice.com co-founder and CTO. “Version 2.0 reflects that shift in priorities and gives a retailer even more ways to build a comprehensive, interactive Facebook store that will not just increase traffic and interaction but deliver actual sales as well.”

The host of customization choices that SortPrice added to Version 2.0 is designed to help retailers build a Facebook presence that is more consistent with their existing websites. These enhancements, all accessible through the application’s merchant management console, give a merchant the ability to:

• Add customized banners, colors and splash pages to their storefronts;
• Tailor the layout of the actual store, either by moving particular components such as popular products or recently viewed products or enabling/disabling those same components however they wish;
• Customize product categories so they match up with those on their retail site;
• Include personalized footers in the form of links, banners, certifications, contact information or simple text to the bottom of the application

Also new to the application is a feature that allows merchants to list two products from their Facebook store side-by-side and solicit feedback from their followers on which one they prefer or would rather buy, bringing all the fun of traditional comparison shopping right to a merchant’s Facebook Page. The application now also features a dedicated section where retailers can spotlight their most popular products, which is ideal for special sales and promotions.

Version 2.0 also coincides with Facebook’s recent coding change from FBML to IFrames, which makes the site’s Like buttons more universal than ever. Along with faster page loads and a smoother overall experience, merchants will be able to see just how many Likes they’re getting on both their Facebook store and their website as well, making it easier to track how people are interacting with their listings and products.

Since introducing the original Merchant Application in October 2008, SortPrice.com has built Facebook stores for more than 1500 national retailers of every and those merchants collectively posted more than $3.78 billion worth of merchandise on their Facebook stores in 2010. For a full list of SortPrice’s retail partners and more information on Version 2.0, please contact us.

SortPrice.com, founded in 2004, has grown into one of the internet’s most popular shopping search engines. With advanced search technology and a simple interface, the site features millions of products from thousands of merchants nationwide.

The Federal Trade Commission alleges that the practices Google employed violated the FTC Act. The proposed settlement bars Google from “future privacy misrepresentations, requires it to implement a comprehensive privacy program, and calls for regular, independent privacy audits for the next 20 years.”

According to the FTC, this is the “first time an FTC settlement order has required a company to implement a comprehensive privacy program to protect the privacy of consumers’ information. In addition, this is the first time the FTC has alleged violations of the substantive privacy requirements of the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor Framework, which provides a method for U.S. companies to transfer personal data lawfully from the European Union to the United States.”

Here is more information from the FTC that explains what Google did:

According to the FTC complaint, Google launched its Buzz social network through its Gmail web-based email product. Although Google led Gmail users to believe that they could choose whether or not they wanted to join the network, the options for declining or leaving the social network were ineffective. For users who joined the Buzz network, the controls for limiting the sharing of their personal information were confusing and difficult to find, the agency alleged.

On the day Buzz was launched, Gmail users got a message announcing the new service and were given two options: “Sweet! Check out Buzz,” and “Nah, go to my inbox.” However, the FTC complaint alleged that some Gmail users who clicked on “Nah…” were nonetheless enrolled in certain features of the Google Buzz social network. For those Gmail users who clicked on “Sweet!,” the FTC alleges that they were not adequately informed that the identity of individuals they emailed most frequently would be made public by default. Google also offered a “Turn Off Buzz” option that did not fully remove the user from the social network.

In response to the Buzz launch, Google received thousands of complaints from consumers who were concerned about public disclosure of their email contacts which included, in some cases, ex-spouses, patients, students, employers, or competitors. According to the FTC complaint, Google made certain changes to the Buzz product in response to those complaints.

When Google launched Buzz, its privacy policy stated that “When you sign up for a particular service that requires registration, we ask you to provide personal information. If we use this information in a manner different than the purpose for which it was collected, then we will ask for your consent prior to such use.” The FTC complaint charges that Google violated its privacy policies by using information provided for Gmail for another purpose – social networking – without obtaining consumers’ permission in advance.

The agency also alleges that by offering options like “Nah, go to my inbox,” and “Turn Off Buzz,” Google misrepresented that consumers who clicked on these options would not be enrolled in Buzz. In fact, they were enrolled in certain features of Buzz.

The complaint further alleges that a screen that asked consumers enrolling in Buzz, “How do you want to appear to others?” indicated that consumers could exercise control over what personal information would be made public. The FTC charged that Google failed to disclose adequately that consumers’ frequent email contacts would become public by default.

Finally, the agency alleges that Google misrepresented that it was treating personal information from the European Union in accordance with the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor privacy framework. The framework is a voluntary program administered by the U.S. Department of Commerce in consultation with the European Commission. To participate, a company must self-certify annually to the Department of Commerce that it complies with a defined set of privacy principles. The complaint alleges that Google’s assertion that it adhered to the Safe Harbor principles was false because the company failed to give consumers notice and choice before using their information for a purpose different from that for which it was collected.

Google created Google Hotpot, because some of the programmers and developers at Google noticed that over 20% of the searches conducted on Google have a local intent. While that doesn’t seem like much, when you have millions of searches on your search engine being conducted on a daily basis, 20% is a rather large number. Ratings can be made on Google maps, an Android phone, or the Google Hotpot tool. Most people have already seen the ratings on Google Maps, but have never known how they got there (well, now you know).

After you sign into your Google account, you can go to http://www.google.com/hotpot/ to set up your Hotpot account, complete with a nickname, and photo (if you wish). This product actually walks you through how to set up your account which makes the site much more useful. Once you’re in, you can start searching. You best bet is to type in what you are looking for along with the zip code of your area (ex: takeout 74813 ; zoo 90216, etc.). From there you will be shown some recommendations for that area. If you see a place that you have already been to, you can give it a rating, and share some information about your experience. As you use the site, the algorithm adapts, and you get new recommendations depending on ratings that you’ve given to various places. You can also bring in your friends by clicking on the Friends tab to send them an email inviting them to join you on Google Hotpot.

Whether or not this will be a game changer is highly questionable since Google is getting into the rating places arena so late (sites like Yelp already have a very strong system in place for getting people to use their site to rate locations). Also, in order to use Google Hotpot, you have to login with your Google account info, and then go through the setup process for your Hotpot account in order to just browse the site. With most other review sites you can just jump right in. Yelp, for example, gave me general search results for my area without having to type in a zip code to start. Plus, the different categories, and download link for the Yelp app are all shown towards the top of the site so I didn’t have to scroll down to find anything.

With that being said, since Google Hotpot is directly tied to other Google products, such as Google Maps, it could easily be used to help you rank higher in the Google search results IF you have a brick and mortar business. Also, as a side note, it would be very wise to claim your spot on Google Places, because if Google Hotpot does take off, those who are already set up on Google Places will be the ones to benefit the most from the start. Another way to easily boost your standings in Google Maps is by having people give you a good review on Google Hotpot which can lead to your business listing being displayed higher up for searches involving reviews.

Overall, Google Hotpot has potential, but just how much potential is rather difficult to determine at this point. It will greatly depend on how agressively Google Hotpot is marketed, along with whether or not Google makes the Hotpot website much more readily accessible (i.e. ditch the login when browsing the site).