Mark Zuckerberg got married, everyone! A day after taking Facebook public, Zuck tied the knot with his longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan and announced it the only way he knows how: through his Facebook timeline.

RELATED: Facebook Considering a $100 Billion IPO in Early 2012

How the ceremony came together is actually adorable. Zuckerberg and Chen had been planning the wedding in secret for five months months leading up to this weekend, according to All Things D. The timing of the wedding lining up with Facebook’s IPO was just a coincidence. The date of the IPO was a “moving target” and just happened to coincide with the wedding. The ceremony was held in the backyard of Zuckerberg’s California home. He even designed the ring himself!

RELATED: Zuckerberg Secures Himself Lots of Power (and Money)

The 100 attendees thought they were attending a party for celebrating Chen’s recent graduation from med school, and Mark’s birthday, which was on May 14. The couple didn’t tell their wedding guests they were attending a wedding until everyone had arrived. “Everyone was shocked,” a source told The Associated Press, who were the first to report the story.

RELATED: Mark Zuckerberg’s Chinese Vacation Doesn’t Seem Like Much of a Vacation

Congratulations, guys!

by Todd Wasserman

In a big vote of no confidence before Facebook’s IPO, General Motors is pulling its ads from the platform, calling them “ineffective,” according to a Wall Street Journal report.

The automaker determined that its ads on the platform “had little impact on consumers,” according to the report, which cites “people familiar with the matter.” GM will continue to market via Facebook’s brand Pages, which, of course, are free.

Reps from GM and Facebook could not be reached for comment.

More to come…

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, blackred

Can the number 2 search engine in the world plan to climb to the number one spot?
Integrating social media seems to be key.

Bing.com has been reinvented, now offering enhanced search results that harness the power of social media sites to populate a “social column” on the right side of the screen. To do this, profiles from Facebook, Twitter, Google + and Quora will be pulled from the normal search results. Users will even be able to ask questions on their favorite social network without leaving the comfort of Bing.

“What Your Friends May Know,” —the name for social column— currently only integrates Facebook. When a query is entered, Bing populates this list with your friends and other topic experts. In order to find people to assist you in your queries, simply sign into Facebook and install the Bing App.

And how does Bing build these lists? Microsoft execs explain that they are leveraging as much publicly available data as they can from Social Media sites. If someone has posted a status, tweet, picture or liked a link on the topic, then they have a stronger likelihood of appearing in your search.

Microsoft admits that a large reason for this update was to clean clutter from the main search. How do you feel about the integration of social sites into Bing?

By Benjamin Maltbie

by Aldrin Calimlim for AppAdvice

Gradually entering a level on a par with BlackBerry Messenger and Apple’s iMessage, Facebook Messengerhas just been updated with some neat additional features.

Facebook’s dedicated messaging app for iPhone, which is independent of the official Facebook app, has gained the ability to display read receipts. In one-on-one messages, the app displays “Seen” followed by the time when the message was read. In group chats, it displays the same plus the names of the ones in the group who have read it.

But unlike iMessage, which offers read receipts as an opt-in feature, Facebook Messenger provides no way to opt out of them in case you don’t want others knowing exactly when you you’ve read their messages. In line with this, the app has also replaced its three-dot real-time typing symbol in group conversations with as simple as the name of the person currently typing a reply. The updated app now also attaches location data to each message, provided that the sender has granted permission for the app to do so. Here’s a screen shot:

Notably absent in the update is the long overdue support for video chat. Upon its launch in August last year, a “hidden” video component was discovered in the app. That component remains untapped. Rest assured that video chat is underway, along with an iPad version of Facebook Messenger.

The free Facebook Messenger is available in the App Store. Now that it’s enhanced with more features, do you see any clear advantages of using Facebook Messenger over working with messages in the all-inclusive Facebook app?

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This article originally published at AppAdvice here.

The New iPad Details Hit Apple.com

The new 9.7-inch iPad has 2048 x 1536-pixel retina display, 5-megapixel camera (with the same optics sensor from the iPhone 4S) and 1080p video recording. It is available March 16 in black and white, powered by A5X chip (with quad-core graphics) and supports 4G LTE networks. It’s 9.4 millimeters thick and 1.4 pounds.

Pinterest drove more traffic to online publishers in February than Twitter, according to third-party measurement data.

That’s an impressive figure, given that the two-year-old site has an estimated 11.7 million active registered users compared to Twitter’s more than 100 million.

The data was provided by Shareholic, whose sharing widgets are used across more than 200,000 online publishers, mostly independent bloggers. Between them, those publishers reach some 270 million unique visitors every month.

In February, the company found that a little less than half (48.81%) of all traffic came from Google, followed by Facebook (6.38%), Yahoo (1.61%), StumbleUpon (1.29%) and Bing (1.21%). Pinterest came in sixth at 1.05%, beating out Twitter at 0.82%.

 

 

In January, Shareholic found that Pinterest sent more referral traffic to publishers than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined, falling into line just behind Twitter. Women’s lifestyle, home decor and cooking magazineshave been among the biggest beneficiaries of Pinterest’s growth. Some are seeing bigger referral numbers from the image-collecting service than from major portals like Facebook and Yahoo.

Content from magazine websites and blogs — particularly those that focus on home decor, arts and crafts, style and food — are among the most frequently “pinned” subjects on Pinterest. Thus it’s no surprise that those two parties are among the first to report significant traffic growth from the site.

 by Lauren Indvik

Victoria Ransom is founder and CEO of Wildfire Interactive, the global leader in social media marketing software. Victoria and Wildfire will host a free webinar on March 2 at 10 a.m. PT, entitled “Timeline for Brands: How to Make the Switch,” further outlining best practices for brands in transitioning to Facebook’s new Timeline format.

Today Facebook announced to brand marketers the world over that, within the month, everything they knew about fan Pages on Facebook would be overturned. While you get your brand ready for the new Timeline format, here are six important changes to keep top-of-mind.

1. Updated Look and Feel

What’s new: The format of Timeline for brands is quite similar to Timeline for personal profiles. It employs a cover photo at the top of the Page, and the Page is separated into two main columns by a dividing line, which represents the passage of time. This format provides brands with new options for self-expression: They can outline their corporate history with milestones (such as product launches, store openings, etc.) to construct a narrative for their audience.

Recommendation: Milestones present an important and dramatic opportunity to educate the public, humanize the brand and remove a perception of corporate anonymity. Our analyses of Page engagement have continually shown that brands posting content that depicts behind-the-scenes activities, exclusive updates or promotions encourages user interactions and promotes higher engagement rates. Using interesting milestones to craft the story of the brand over time (and updating the Timeline with new milestones as they happen) can help to stimulate conversations around major achievements.

2. Reduced Tab Visibility

What’s new: The new Timeline format does not have the left-side panel of links, which could include hundreds of different tabs. While applications still exist, they’ll display differently, in rectangular panels underneath the cover photo. The width of the Timeline and the space allocated for native apps like Photos means that only three tab panels are viewable at any given time. To see more, users must expand the tab panel by clicking a drop-down box.

Recommendation: For marketers, this major change means that the three above-fold tab apps need to be considered carefully — this will be one of the first things users see when interacting with your brand on Facebook. Brands will want to switch up which tabs are visible “above the fold,” according to current company objectives or project popularity. A good Page analytics tool will be useful for determining which tab to promote on a day-to-day basis.

3. No Default Landing Page

What’s new: With the new Timeline Page format, you will no longer be able to set a default landing Page, a favored feature for many savvy brands. The option was one of the primary ways to control the first (branded) impression a user encountered. Since there are no more tab Pages, there is no way to set one as a default. This will drastically change user impressions when they first visit a brand’s Timeline Page.

Recommendation: You will need to apply new and careful attention to all the top messages in the Timeline, as they will be the first objects seen by visiting users. Likewise, Facebook ads for brands will become ever important, as ads will be one of the major ways brands on Facebook can control a user’s experience. Setting up an advertising campaign for a Facebook promotion or new application will be the only way to guide new and clicking users directly to that application (as landing on this Page cannot be achieved by default).

4. New Way to Feature Content

What’s new: One major new feature that marketers will love is the ability to “pin” certain posts to the top of the Timeline. Similar to marking a blog post “sticky,” so that it remains at the top of a blog for a specified period of time, pinning a post to the top of Timeline allows it to precede any other content. A pinned post is distinguished by a small, orange flag. Brands can pin only one item at a time, and the pinned item then exists in two locations — as the top item on the Timeline itself, as well as within its chronological place. Once unpinned (which happens automatically when a new item gets pinned, or the item has been pinned for more than seven days), the post remains in the chronology of Timeline posts, but there is no visual history that it was pinned in the past.

Recommendation: Since you can no longer create a default landing Page, pinning items to the top of the Timeline will become every marketer’s go-to strategy for highlighting new and interesting content. We will begin to see savvy brands design posts specifically to be pinned, whether images, a well-designed call-to-action, a statement about brand value, or a message calling for the user to click one of the tab panels under the cover photo.

5. Current Tab Content and Applications Become Outdated

What’s new: The new Timeline layout displaces Facebook’s existing Page tab configuration (including a tab’s 520-pixel width), and replaces it with a new 810-pixel layout. As a result, existing Page tab content will look centered in the middle of the 810-pixel layout without any adjustments. All applications that remain on a brand’s Page will need new application icons (the new dimensions are 111×74).

Recommendation: The most pressing updates for brands will be to update the images and tab functionality of the above-fold two apps. As these are the first tabs users will see, they will likely be the first to be interacted with, or entirely ignored if not optimized for the new experience.

6. Private Messages Between Brands and Users

What’s new: Finally, brands will be able to send and receive private messages with users. This allows for much deeper consumer interaction, and will also enable Page managers to take extended customer inquiries off the Timeline and into a private message.

Recommendation: Be mindful of noise in the Timeline. Since the real estate allocated to each post depends on how engaging it is or how much interaction it has received, it can be easy to clutter your Timeline with customer inquiries. When these inquiries can be better serviced in a more one-on-one manner, reach out to the consumer with a private message and resolve her question. It’s a good opportunity to yield both a happy user and a clean Timeline.

Timeline for brands will certainly shake things up for social media marketers who seek to make an impact on Facebook. One thing is for sure though: The way content is shared and viewed within a Timeline Page is incredibly important. Brands that constantly create engaging updates and share important milestones will stay at the forefront of users’ attention. Create and rotate new apps for engagement, pin relevant and timely content, and update the feed with user-friendly dialogues to stay relevant in this new space.

Will you or your company do anything differently, right off the bat? Share your thoughts in the comments below

by Victoria Ransom

With Facebook Timeline‘s takeover of personal profiles complete, the social networking giant is unleashing its latest greatest invention upon brand Pages, too.

Facebook announced on Wednesday morning that Timeline is now live for the first time for some organizations that use Pages. Mashable got the lowdown on what brands can expect in a briefing at the company’s Menlo Park headquarters earlier this week.

Much like with profiles, the new platform has the potential for real design beauty, but with the added bonus of multiple publicly-known storylines and angles to draw from. The cover photo can be especially powerful for its ability to display logos, products or personalities. The timeline itself showcases brands’ unique stories and identities. Facebook is also introducing some handy new admin capabilities, including the ability to sticky selected pieces of content for seven days.

Timeline for profiles was designed to make Facebook a better medium for individuals to tell the stories that create their identities, and the philosophy for brands is no different, according to Timeline product manager Sam Lessin.

“Organizations have identities too,” he said earlier this week.

More than any other facet of the new design, the timeline itself is especially effective at conveying those identities. The timeline of Livestrong’s Page that Mashable was shown began with photos of Lance Armstrong bed-ridden with cancer — powerful stuff. Manchester United‘s timeline points to its rich history, with the first entry dating back to 1878. Brands can also call out specific milestones — a first sale, major acquisition or debut of a hit product, for example — by starring them so they appear double-wide. That exists with personal Timeline profiles already, but can wield special force for brands.

When you visit a brand Page in Timeline layout, the experience becomes more personal. A prominently displayed section on the landing page shows how many of your friends like the brand, as well as your friends’ public mentions of related topics.

“The goal is to make Pages more engaging and more social,” said Gokul Rajaram, Facebook’s product director for ads.

Page administrators have new options at their fingers too. An admin panel hides or expands on command, meaning you don’t have to navigate to a separate page to make changes, updates or improvements. The panel includes notifications of activity on your Page and chart-based performance data. Best of all, you can now respond directly to private messages without added hassles or obstacles, a feature also directly accessible from the admin panel.

To see examples of what Timeline has to offer brand Pages, check out the gallery below.

And fear not, nervous admins and traditionalist users: Page administrators have until March 30 to curate their new profiles, then the revamp goes live for everyone.

Do you think Facebook Timeline brand Pages will be successful for organizations? Let us know in the comments.

by Sam Laird

Yep, we’re introducing the first-ever Copyblogger infographic. It’s about our favorite topic — creating great content.

And, as has been our style since the beginning, we’re practicing what we preach. This infographic demonstrates how to repurpose existing content in a different media format, get more bang from your archives, and reach new and different audiences in the process.

The graphic is based on 21 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue by Copyblogger guest writer Danny Iny. We’ve re-imagined the way to present these content-creation tips, while adding a meta-fabulous #22 (you’ll see why).

Special thanks to our friends on the BlueGlass infographic team for making this thing look so good!

by Brian Clark

Recent updates on YouTube include “a new way to promote your Google+ profile on YouTube, more options in the Annotations Editor” and more options to post Channel Bulletins to your Channel Feed.

Add a Google+ button to your YouTube channel.

You can now share videos and playlists in your YouTube Channel Feed by posting a Channel Bulletin.More to come….