@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

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GoToMeeting, GoToWebinar and ShowMyPc

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Remote viewing or remote connections have been an imperative part of the technical support world for many years. However, in more recent years, developers finally found other great formats for remote connection that also has plenty of benefits.

  • Web Meetings and Conferences
  • Webinars
  • Web Training

 Along with other useful aspects, these are some of the reasons why remote connectivity software or programming has become more popular in recent years.

GoToMeeting

GotoMeeting offers their customers a solid package for the price of $49 USD per month. This fee includes integrated VoIP, telephone conferencing service and a single license for unlimited web meetings with up to fifteen participants. With their software package users will be able to:

  • Schedule regular or reoccurring meetings
  • One-click meetings
  • Transfer the mouse and keyboard controls to meeting participants
  • Access to desktop and selected applications
  • Clean screen
  • Instant messaging
  • Activity time-outs
  • Meeting recording

GoToMeeting also allows users to create Webinars. If you are not familiar with the term, think of it as being allowed to attend a large conference from the comfort of your own home.

GotoWebinars allows users to harness the same power of remote meeting interaction but on a much larger scale. Webinars created on this service can accommodate up to 1,000 people and can bring the power of influential interaction, literally, to your fingertips.

How Can A Webinar Benefit My Business?

Using Webinars to market your products or services can offer great benefit in many aspects of your day-to-day business planning by:

  • Reducing travel time so you can focus your efforts on the most important elements of your business.
  • Generating more high-quality marketing leads at lesser cost.
  • Presenting your marketing campaign to up to a thousand people from your home or office computer.
  • Helping to save on the bottom line in travel cost, and other forms of audio conferencing such as international calling. 
  • Reaching locales, niches and regions that you may have been previously unable to market to due to other restrictions.

 Alexa shows that GoToMeeting is ranked globally at #381 while the U.S. shows the highest traffic ranking of #132. Users are predominately Caucasian and African-American women with some college education who use the program from work.

ShowMyPc

In comparison, ShowMyPC is another remote connection service that can help to improve productivity and profitability for your business.

Although it offers the same functions as GoToMeeting it also offers a bit more, as well as the flexibility to choose a package that provides only the features you need. Different packages and capabilities include:

  • Remote Meeting Support – Conduct or attend meetings online.
  • Access Home or Office PCs – Remote viewing and access for technical support activity.
  • Privately Hosted Servers – So that users have the option of their own server for conducting secure meetings or simply secure connections on remote access.
  • Broadcasting Presentations or Classroom Planning – If you have a business that involves training and education this is likely the best option for remote access viewing and interaction.

Considering the packages are separate elements on their own, this is likely the more cost efficient option for those who are just launching this type of web conferencing campaigns while GoToMeeting would provide a better value for those who may need to use all of these aspects of remote viewing in their common activities.

ShowMyPc has attained a global ranking of #41,268 and statistics show that most users browse from work and are predominately educated males between the ages of 25 and 45 with incomes ranging from 30 to 100k USD.

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Writing a Great Press Release

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Press Releases are a crucial part of marketing, in fact they are one of the few traditional marketing tools that have flourished in the new media or Digital Brand Age. There are six major types of press releases.

  • General News
  • Event
  • Launch
  • Staff or Executive Announcement
  • Expert Positioning
  • Product

Each of these press releases may have differentiating information, but should take one single overall format. And while it is important to be certain that your press release will help to boost your company’s search engine rankings, it is also critical to consider what will happen once people do find and read your press or news releases.

Creating Your Press Release

Many elements in the creation of the press release are very important.

Title Creation

Above all, you need to make sure the title is compelling. This is what draws the reader in and drives them to continue to read past the first sentence. It is good practice to be sure your title supplies a question that would appeal to those whom your marketing efforts target.

Subheadings

Subheadings or bullet points provides visual breaks in the content. Although some readers may not be bothered by massive chunks of text that contain many sentences, most readers can quickly become overwhelmed by the ‘job’ that reading five hundred words in a few paragraphs may be.

Body Content

Create the strongest lead paragraph you can formulate. Try to remember the five important W’s that should be incorporated into the first two paragraphs.

  • Who
  • What
  • When
  • Why
  • Where

Try to make these two paragraphs read to a viewer so that even if they do not continue to read beyond this point, they understand the general idea of the press release.

Supply quotes and statistics. Depending on the direction your press release is taking, gather related quotes from company engineers, experts in the industry or even customers who have tried, and enjoyed your products or services. Select the most shining example that you have.

Boilerplate

The last part, or the last few sentences of your press release can sometimes be referred to as the boilerplate. The text used here should be very standard and for this reason could be used on any other press releases regardless of their nature. This information always immediately precedes the use of  # # # which signals the end of a press release.

This informative selection of text should include the contact information or instructions on how or where you can get more information on the news, product or service behind the press release itself. Phone contacts, physical location and website information are all common elements of the boilerplate.

Before setting your press release in stone by submitting it online or even to a physical news source, be sure you have reviewed it and while doing so keep an eye out for common mistakes in press releases.

  1. It should never exceed one page and a half. Even if you have much more to say, this size of press release is fairly large. The ideal press release will fit on one digital document or one sheet of paper.
  2. Avoid writing in singular or plural. Stick to a third party, neutral source point-of-view.
  3. Use reader-friendly English, not tech jargon understood by only a few.
  4. Do not use overly hyped language in your press release. Phrases such as breaking news, most unique, the best are all considerably generic terms that may turn your viewers off instead of compel them to read on.
  5. Most important aspects of the press release are in the first two or three paragraphs.
  6. Always include a means to reach a live contact.
  7. Proofread and edit for typos or other grammatical issues.

All of these elements are important in creating a press release that can provide coverage for your news and information on your company’s products or services in one tight article.

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Google is Still Winning – But For How Long?

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Although Google may still be the top search engine in the U.S., and by a still impressively immense margin, the last six months have shown that Bing, powered by Microsoft, is leading an impressive race in the competition for top search engine status. If this trend continues to increase at its current rate, Bing may very well be a real competitor for leading search engine status by 2012.

Bing Growth

According to recent statistical data, Google received over 64% of searches conducted from within the United States in March of 2011. Searches powered by Bing, which also include Yahoo and Bing.com, were utilized at a rate of 30%.

Even though Google still leads Bing by more than 2 to 1, the 30% mark for Bing is a rather notable one considering that just six months ago, Bing held a rate of U.S. search engine queries at only 23%. Down 10% since August 2010, the same month when Yahoo searches began to be powered by Bing, should these statistics be compounded in their current directions, it could be possible that Bing would beat out Google as the leading search engine sometime in January 2012. Although it doesn’t seem very likely, at current projections, it could be the result of current search engine trends.

Google Growth

While Google’s growth has obviously flattened out in recent months, Bing has continued to rise. However, Google continues to fill up their handy box of tricks with new features such as +1, Google Instant, and their social search, as well as their ability to block unwanted websites.

Search Ad Profitability

With the above statistics in mind it is easy to understand that at this point Bing is still chasing Google in search ad profits. While Google’s search engine advertising profits still massively outweigh Bings, Bing still seems to be on a winning rise in some of the most imperative categories.

Outside of the U.S.

Google remains a dominant tool for search engine queries with a rate that steady for the U.K. at 91%. This rate is even higher in other European countries like Germany, France and Australia.

 

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The State of Now – The #140conf

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Jeff Pulver is an interesting character. Not the most charismatic of speakers, yet his words make a lot of sense. He started “in computers”, as he calls it, 17 years ago. He was one of the co-founders of Vonage, and invested in Twitter back in 2007. Here is, paraphrased, what he says about the State on Now and why #140conf. is needed.

Our world is changing very quickly with the new technologies. Things we can do today were unthinkable just 20 or 30 years ago. In his opinion, one of the biggest changes happened with the invention of Twitter. He compares it to the invention of the telegraph or the radio.

Here is why:  Social Media has brought with it a new opening for people to express their thoughts and feelings and share them with others.  The ordinary, everyday folks could voice their opinion. The more people think and feel the same way, the bigger impact the citizens have on what is going on in their world. We saw the power of the internet in raising funds in the 2008 elections.

At the same time, our modern world has made us all Short Attention Span sufferers. We want the information now, and we want it fast and accurate. And we want it short. When it comes to voicing our opinions, not everyone is a good writer who has the patience and the stamina to hold a blog. Twitter combines those two elements and allows composing only a short message that even the untalented writer can do. It opens the door to so much, Jeff Pulver says, that we are still incapable of determining what kind of impact it will have on our future world.

Social media changed advertising, changed reading habits and changed politics. Even though Jeff Pulver said those things in 2009, he was right on the money when you look at the last event in the Middle East.

What Jeff does now is provide a platform for people who spend time learning all those new technologies and implement them on a daily basis, to share their knowledge and observations. He does it in the form of #140 Conferences all over the United States and Canada. He invites interesting people to speak, and the interested to listen and learn.

These conferences, like the June, 2009 #140conf. in NYC have a theme. The New York one talked about the role of news media in the world of Twitter. The uprising in Iran was on everyone’s mind at the time and the experts pointed out that the world was watching – not on CNN but on Twitter.

This year, the conferences are held in NYC (3/9), in Austin during the SXSW (3/14-17), De Moines (5/9), Vancouver (5/19), Twain Harte, CA. (5/24) and Long Island (5/26). An international conference will be held in NYC (6/15-16)

The #140conf. provides an opportunity for the Twitter community to connect, listen, share, engage and learn while exploring the effects of the real time internet on business. As an example some of the invited speakers in the NYC International conference are as diverse as:

Alicia Yarbo, producer of the Today Show and co-author “Today’s Moms”, Alon Nir, founder, Tweet Your Prayers, Craig Newmark, founder, Craigslist, Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, NJ and Hank Wasiak, partner, The Concept Farm, together with other founder of small and large businesses, educators and writers, media and non-profit organizations representatives.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt_qf9YoypA]

The Long Island #140Conf is set for May 26th 2011 at Touro Law Center, this event could be one of the biggest Social Media Events to hit Long Island, especially given that it has been often overlooked in the shadow of NYC. Long

Island has long been host to some great social influence all the way back to the days of AIM. With Long Island boasting a social landscape that forms the bridge between NYC and the coveted Social Elite of the Hamptons, this Social Media Valley is ripe for such an event.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv6QJssVcGs&feature=related]

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Stik: Reviews from your social network

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Making significant purchases such as new homes, insurance policies or even your well-planned retirement investments will require individuals to find professionals they can truly trust. Many unsuspecting consumers may find themselves working with unknown representatives or salespersons who may not always have the buyers best financial interest at heart.

Just as unfortunately it can often be confusing to know where to find a trustworthy partner in this important venture. Although some businesses, online or off, may proclaim their reputable characteristics, there can also be whispers about even their policies or practices being questionable. Most often, the best group to rely on are those who have already made their own investments with the help of good salespeople and had very pleasant and lucrative experiences.

Stik offers a great system for users to leave behind their own reviews for friends who they already know they can trust and rely on. Stik can help take the stress and anxiety from major purchases from the buyer side, as well as providing great feedback to professionals who deserve the recognition for delicate financial jobs well done and beneficial to the buyers.

Get Stik’D

Logging in via Facebook is likely the quickest and easiest option, though if you do not have a Facebook account for some reason, this would be a great time to get one. The integration provided by Facebook will prevent users from having to repetitively enter the same information.

Once you have signed it, Stik will give you the option to select from your Facebook friends users you would like to ask for recommendations from. Once you have sent that on you can leave recommendations of your own for those on your friends list.

Setting up your profile is as simple as entering a few descriptions of your services and allowing Facebook’s regional information to integrate itself. Once in you will be give several search options. Searching through your friends first, shared connections, the distance from your location and even through keyword relevance. Whenever you need to do a new search, click on the Stik site and select the type of business you are planning to do from the available choices:

  • Real Estate
  • Insurance
  • Mortgage
  • Finance
  • Law

Essentially, your Stik profile can help to showcase personalized recommendations or reviews that will encourage prospective customers to feel comfortable entering a business relationship with you. Since you can now display updates from your Facebook fan page on your Stik profile, you won’t have to work twice as hard to post them to both profiles. Simply visit the “Recent Activity” tab on your profile and select the link to “Display your Facebook content here” to quickly display your public posts to your Stik profile.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuvcrPjp860]

Stik Users

Stik’s current US traffic rank is at 3,972. User audience consist greatly of those with limited college educations as well as to women who earn over 60k per year. Most browsers view from work.

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Best Twitter Tools: TweetDeck, TrueTwit, FLLWRS, 20FT, Formulists

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Twitter has become such a media marketing giant on the net in the last few years that there is now an entire industry devoted to the creation of tools, tips and tricks to make your Twitter experience easier, quicker or more user-friendly in just about any manner. Many of those tools provided can help to do quite a few things for your Twitter account. These are a few of the BEst Twitter Tools you can use together for a great twitter experience.

TweetDeck

Well, TweetDeck honestly does a little bit of everything. Its many features include:

  • Updates to Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and Google Buzz.
  • Retweet in the common Twitter style, or create your own.
  • Smoothly manage conversations with @replies or direct messaging.
  • Keep on top of trending information.
  • Easily locate friends or other similar niche followers.  
  • View, record and share YouTube videos and clips.
  • LinkedIn contact integration
  • Manage multiple accounts on Twitter

The list seriously goes on and on. This may be the best of the all-in-one tools available for social media management. If that isn’t great enough, the TweetDeck’s Deck.ly integration allows users to continue typing past the character limit and allow Deck.ly to show them the rest.

TweetDeck has a global Alexa ranking of 2,215. Most are highly educated females who browse mostly from work. This site is also popular in Mexico where it is ranked at #796.

 TrueTwit

TrueTwit is a Twitter validation tool that can help you automate a few vital Twitter services. The basic, or free, account provides several benefits.

  • The basic service is always free
  • New followers must pass a CAPTCHA test for validation.
  • Users can decide to auto-follow the new users who are validated.
  • Users can choose to auto-unfollow those users who unfollow them.
  • Users can try out a pro version for 30 days at any time.

The professional, or premium TrueTwit account allows for a bit stiffer and more intensive Twitter management.

  • Users can choose to allow TrueTwit to analyze prospective followers to be certain they are more than just spam or affiliate accounts.
  • Users are provided with a Follower Analysis page that shows a summary of the status of all of your followers.
  • Users receive a free 30 day trial of the product. If satisfied, they pay $20 USD per year.

Ranked 5,384 globally, TrueTwit’s average viewers tend to be Caucasian women between the ages of 35 and 55 who make between 30k and 100k USD per year.

FLLWRS

FLLWRS is another Twitter follower management tool but on a very basic level. Simply click to the URL and select the option to See your twitter follower history. Allow the integration suggestion, and move right into your follower management configurations.

FLLWRS will not only monitor your followers but also provide you with a list with those who have unfollowed you. Managing this list can help a business who uses Twitter understand what may be turning their consumers off about their marketing techniques.

FLLWRS has a global traffic ranking of 55,894 with around 25% of its users located in the U.S. It is also very popular in the Netherlands where its ranking is listed at 5,010. On average, FLLWRS users are educated, childless females under the age of 35 with incomes ranging around 30k USD.

20Ft

20ft is a performance based Twitter tool that allows users to recap their last Twitter week for the user, their followers and friends.

A post about your week on Twitter is published at the start of each week automatically if you configure the service to do so. So what is your week on Twitter all about? And what does 20ft do for their users?

  • 20Ft helps to create a detailed analysis for your social media profiles and provides incredible data in your timeline charts.
  • 20Ft can send their users a ‘nudge’ if their metrics change significantly, for the positive or negative.
  • Users will have their own aggregated statistics in one easy place to access with a simple user interface.
  • This overview can be provided for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Analytics and more.

At #118,130 20Ft still has some work to do to impress Alexa beyond the current ranking. The average 20Ft user tend to browse from work and are on average women between the ages of 25 and 55 with high-end educations.

Formulists

Formulists is a Twitter tool that allows users to organize groups of their Twitter followers into auto-updting Twitter lists. Formulists allows for filter application and networking solely based on your biography, location and supplied keywords or phrases as well as your Twitter activity, the number of followers and more.

Although list creation and management can be difficult for users who are not incredibly net savvy, Forumulists provides its users with helpful text tutorials as well as videos to make set up easier than ever.

Users can choose to create Formulists to help filter those they follow, expand their network, manage current followers, track interactions, or even customize existing lists.

This type of organization and management can help you to create a Twitter following of followers who already have vested interest in your own products and services.

Formulists has a global page ranking of 48,923. Although popular in the U.S., this site is very popular in Bangladesh with a ranking of 12,892. Viewers are primarily females between the ages of 35 and 54 who browse from home.

Another Great tool is Paper.li and was covered in a previous blog.

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Google’s New E-Commerce Features

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Web retailers may have just received extra encouragement for product promotion from Google with the launch of their new E-commerce, product-specific search capabilities. At least two new features will stand out to regular users.

Instant Results

First, there is the type-as-you-go feature that Google users have grown accustomed to in their web search tool. This feature will now attempt to fill in some of the most commonly searched products, even localized when possible, and get instant results for browsing and purchasing items from your query.

How Does this Work?

To see this feature in action head to babyage.com a Baby Store site and begin to type the phrase “portable cribs” into the search bar, as you do you can see that even at the letter P it is offering quick search results with clickable photo links directly to the product page. The more letters added the more specific the search results are displayed.

Product Availability

Since commerce for major purposes over the past few years has taken on a combination of online and offline shopping, the second new feature of the ecommerce upgrade encourages localized shopping by maintaining inventory management systems of many of the larger retailers. This allows users to find out exactly where an item they are interested in can be located in their area. Wal-Mart has been using a similar system for their online shoppers for quite some time.

This type of product availability mapping can be a great tool for those who do not have hours on end around the holiday seasons to hunt down the year’s hottest products. Utilized widely it may even have some impact on economical aspects such as saving on travel expenses. For those used to shopping online for their minor needs this may not seem like a big deal, however, considering that some items even the sharpest online shopper would likely never purchase online, this could make that bargain shopping hunt far easier.

Items like furniture, appliances and heavy equipment such as lawn mowers or outside storage containers may certainly be items that are well worth the trip to the actual store to save on shipping cost. The new system can also help you to find the store closest to you so that those ungainly trips to return home with those items much more convenient.

The Business End of E-Commerce Updates

Business owners are allowed to fully customize the appearance of their results any way they choose. With some additional merchandising and marketing options users can easily configure their own promotions to be displayed with a visitor enters a related search as well as designate their banner zones on site.

To help users better understand the new changes, Google has supplied a video with a great explanation on YouTube. 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nje9fUcIkKc&feature=player_embedded]

There seems to more happening these days beyond google checkout, take a look at the big picture and google commerce in conjunction with google apps and google checkout any small business can now rival the technology of the biggest corporations.

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Digital Visibility: The Local Search Snapshot

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As a business owner, you know you must have a presence on the World Wide Web to be considered a legitimate business. There are thousands of digital touch points out there, and knowing how you or your business appears to the world is almost as important as being there in the first place.

If you are serious about your visibility, leaving it to chance and luck is not good enough anymore. Sure, Google will do some of the work, categorizing it, linking it, but there is so much more to the World Wide Web than just Google, as big as it may be.

The first step is to make sure you appear in the right places and appear with the correct information. Some companies on the web will help you do just that.

GetListed.org

GetListed.org, in existence since January 2009, serves as a resource for small business owners to find out how they are listed. Their goal is “to help small businesses claim and enhance their listings at major search engines”. They provide a clear picture of how effectively you are using the free resources available today. You might be able to compare it to your competitors as well.

The company has created a resource center which includes articles and tips about internet visibility. They accumulated listings of many SEO experts in different areas and will direct you to the right people.

In this one place you can check, for free, how you are visible to the world, learn about other places and other listings you might want to appear on, and participate in seminars held from time to time in different cities around the United States to help business owners learn about SEO and search engine ranking, in a face to face manner.

GetListed.org operated only in the US until Jan. 2010 when the company started beta testing in the UK as well.

AmIvisible.org

AmIvisible.org is another company which offers their services for free. By goin g to their website you can find how visible is your service or company to potential customers and compare that information with that of your competitors in your area.

AmIvisible.org covers millions of pages on search engines, yellow pages directories and local searches, and provides analysis of your business’s online visibility.

The service is fairly new and is in beta testing in several US cities. It will expand to the whole nation soon.

UBL.org

Universal Business Listing (UBL) strives to be a central collection and distribution point for all your business information online. A one-stop location for complete and accurate listing information.

UBL.org offers more than the sites mentioned above; it will list your business, monitor your presence, provide visibility reports and enhance your profile. They are not only aggregating information, they are actively doing things to change it for the better.

They have packages from $75 as an essential payment, which includes checking listings and monitoring your presence, to $599 which includes all the rest. They have an annual renewal fee of $59, regardless of the program.

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What Mobile Apps Can Do for Small Business

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Mobile Applications have rushed to the forefront of technology and further advancements with the increased usage of net enhanced mobile devices like the iPhone. Breaking beyond the traditional uses for phone and text messaging capabilities, mobile apps have been brought from playroom to boardroom.

Mobile App Statistics

Did you know that 38% of small businesses reporting view mobile apps as an essential aspect of their operations? A recent survey conducted by AT&T defined a few of the most recent statistics on mobile apps and small business. Around 72%, defined by companies that have anywhere from two to fifty employees, have reported that they use some form of mobile applications for their daily operations.

This poll of 2,246 small business owners is likely a great example of the average mobile app demographics for small business owners in the USA.

Most Popular Small Business Apps

The study showed that mapping and GPS tools topped the list of the most popular services utilized by the reporting small businesses at 49%. Other important statistics show:

  • One in four small businesses use social media marketing or document management apps
  • 24% use location-based services
  • 23% use time management apps
  • 22% use travel and expense tracking applications
  • 20% use mobile credit card payment services

When queried as to the chief factor making mobile apps desirable to companies was their time-saving benefits. Even more beneficial was the discovery that the smaller a business, the more likely it is to seek out methods for time saving with mobile and therefore far more convenient applications.

With business apps continually improving, this seems to be in turn, fueling the increase of usage of mobile devices, and therefore mobile applications, by small business owners.

Case Study

Mobile App Photo Sharing with Zurfer

A case study conducted by Mor Naaman, Rahul Nair and Vlad Kaplun of Berkley California, using a high end mobile phone application for photo browsing may give more in-depth clues to how quickly mobile applications are becoming more of a requirement than an option for business owners.

With Zurfer sent to over 500 possible users, only nine of those users participated in the extensive user research. Some of the first statistics noted were those that showed how many users preferred entertainment driven mobile applications as opposed to utilities and working tools.

Nielsen Study

With a recent Nielsen Study reflecting that SmartPhones now cover up to 28% of the U.S. cell phone market, increased usage of mobile applications are an understandable side effect. With studies further showing that the greater part of SmartPhone owners are under thirty-five as well as finding a larger diversity among Hispanic users than may have been expected, this also most certainly opens up some new possibilities for those small businesses that are in tune with mobile application development as well as usage.

Who Are the Main Users?

Perhaps most unsurprisingly, the mobile user market tends to be dominated by younger males with relatively elevated educations and more affluent connections in comparison to the rest of the population. Although studies showed that some users have a disproportionate amount of apps on their phone, the average number claimed a median of ten.

Although apps are not quite as popular yet as photo taking at 76% and text messaging at 71%, the stats provided are still considerable since Apple’s app store didn’t even open until July of 2008.

Overall, considering that there was no app culture whatsoever until around three years ago, most all of these statistics can be most assuredly proof of impressive tech-adoption methods of mobile device users.

The Real Results?

In the end, the case study on Zurfer may have actually proven to supply more much realistic results, as with the reports flooding into Nielsen continuing to show that Game apps are indeed the most highly sought, bought and utilized mobile applications at an average of 60% of monthly downloads, followed by news and weather apps holding around 52% of monthly downloads, social media applications are still listed at number four with a somewhat surprising 47% of downloads monthly.

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Facebook Questions Re-Launch

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Earlier this week Facebook re-launched a previously tested aspect of social networking known as Questions. Questions, although similar to the idea of Yahoo answers actually provides quite a bit more personalized Q & A experiences.

Users can simply head to Facebook Questions and opt in if the account isn’t already enabled. Head to Facebook questions and check out the format. Set like polling questions and answers you should be able to immediately see any questions that any of your friends have posted, or replied to.

Although the last version allowed users to reach out to friends and strangers on Facebook, the new release goes completely against that original grain. This time the design is more geared towards targeting Facebook friends to get their questions answered. Those who have used the new format already can definitely attest to the fact that this system is what makes the Facebook Q & A stand apart from other available services.

Many random users were given beta access to Facebook Questions a year ago, so those same users are the first to gain access to the upgrade, however, once a friend post an answer to one of your questions, or one viewable on your wall, they too will receive an invitation to join the Q & A option.

Like Life

Like life when a question needs to be answered, most often an individual will seek out those who they feel may have a bit of knowledge in that area. Most do this because they feel their chances of getting a question answered on a topic obscure to them, will be much easier if they head to an expert. Even then, we hope if our knowledgeable friend cannot answer it, they will be knowledgeable enough to know someone who can. This is the manner in which the newest Questions upgrade intends to function.

Of course, the new version is also created to take full advantage of the viral nature of mass social networking by allowing users to easily share their own questions, or answers, with their full social graph. This system of take a question, answer it, or pass it on, may very well be far more likely to garner the results Facebook developers were looking for in the first release.

Says Product Manager Adrian Graham, users have many formats where they can go to ask perfect strangers for the answers to their questions, but Facebook Questions may be the first format where users can quickly go, if they aren’t there already, to a format that allows them to ask those questions of their friends.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfPA15Ur8do]

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