Remember seeing the Google street view cars driving around photographing your house? Well unknown to us (and Google), the cars were also gathering information about our wireless networks.

Now lets just clear something up, Google weren’t listening in on our email conversations or finding out about our web surfing habits (There are much easier ways for them to do this without going to these lengths).  No it was much less exciting, what Google were doing was noting the latitude and longitude of these wireless routers (the boxes that most internet users in the UK use to access the web). So what possible use would this be? Well later on someone could be near your house using a Smartphone, the software on these phones use A-GPS (Assisted GPS), this means that not only can they find out their position using their inbuilt GPS sensors, but also they can triangulate their positions using Wireless Access Points.

Google aren’t the first company to do this, Skyhook Wireless did this a couple of years ago as part of its contract with Apple.  What is different is that it appears that one of Google’s programmers added in a bit of rogue code which capture ‘data packets’ of unecrypted access points. Why they did this is another story entirely, but let’s be clear, the information captured is simple not sufficient to warrant people crying “my privacy has been invaded!!”, its the same as a Taxi driving past your house and you hearing a small part of a conversation, not enough for you to jump in your car and steal their clients.

Be patient, watch the movie, an explanation post will follow

Social Media Pack LinkedIn Support now includes support for Sprouter

Sprouter asks entrepreneurs the question “What are you working on?” – answering this question encourages other members of the Sprouter community to offer tips, support, resources or other relevant members to connect with, all in 140 characters or less. Typical social networks allow you to connect with people you already know – whether your friends, family, or former coworkers. The idea behind Sprouter is that it’s the people you haven’t connected with yet but who share common goals and interests who can be the most valuable resources. Join the community, create a profile, and start connecting with other entrepreneurs globally – the community currently has members from all over the world, including India, Australia, Europe, and North America.

With immediate effect, Social Media Pack from Matt Porter Web Design Limited now updates Sprouter. This is a further improvement to our existing Blog Integration.

About Social Media Pack

Social Media Pack is a solution to integrate WordPress Blogs with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr and MySpace. Enabling businesses to spread the word about their products and services to millions of potential customers. In return these businesses receive “warm leads”.

Social Media Pack was devised by Matt Porter Web Design Limited.

For more information email socialmediapack@mattporter.com

This video has been around a little while, but it demonstrates the power of Social Networks better than any I have seen since.  Businesses…. Start the new Decade ahead of your competition.  Social Media Pack does all the work for you.

For more information on Social Media Pack, call Matt on +44(0)1473 272002

Happy New Year to you ALL

Aldeburgh Museum have launched their new Online Archive powered by Social Media Pack.

Social Media Pack allows Aldeburgh Museum to syndicate their latest news and information to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Posterous.

We look forward working with the team at Moot Hall, helping them to give more people access to their historical finds.

The Network Marketing Blog

John Passmore, regular blogger at Network Marketing Blog has completed his transfer from Blogger to Social Media Pack.

www.networkmarketingblog.org.uk, links to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Plaxo and LinkedIn. To view John’s blog, click here.

We look forward to continuing to work with John to grow his business using the power of Social Media.

Just when you thought Facebook was simply a tool to allow you to play Mafia Wars, post pictures of family and friends or searching for long lost school chums, along came a new idea…. why not use Facebook for business?

As of 15th September 2009, Facebook now serves more than 300 million people across the world. A couple of months on, it is very likely that this figure will have overtaken the population of the United States. So, if Facebook were a country they would be the 3rd most populated on the planet!

Just think, every business has the opportunity to market themselves to more than a 5th of the world’s population, the burning question is how?

I would highly recommend that should you decide to actively market your business or products on Facebook, you consider a business account. a business account is slightly different from a personal account.

Read Facebooks terms and conditions. You really don’t want your account banned, and mark my words, Facebook will ban your account if they don’t believe you are behaving fairly.

Make sure your privacy settings are configured to ensure ‘personal information’ is kept private.

Try and integrate your existing web site with your Facebook account using Facebook Connect.

Post newsletters and company information in your profile.

Post your Facebook address in your email signature, business cards etc. There is no point going to the trouble of setting these things up unless you tell as many people as possible where to find you.

Use other social networks such as Twitter alongside your Facebook account.

And finally…. Don’t be too pushy when talking about your products and services online. Social Networks are generally free of charge sites to help you build contacts within your industry, people can just as quickly ‘unfollow‘ you if they think they are getting a ‘hard sell’.

This blog posting also appears on The Best of Ipswich

It’s been very exciting this week in Ipswich. With five new Social Media Packs, it is now clear to us that this was a product that businesses are crying out for.

So what makes the product so useful?

Social Media Pack now integrates with 11 social networks and microblogging sites.

The key to this integration is linking posts back to your blog. When you write your blog post, our system of plugins ‘fires’ that entry over to our supported social networks. Facebook for instance allows us to post the article and photographs, Twitter and Tumblr  allows for status updates. LinkedIn allows for status updates and importing of the blog in it’s entirity.

Listed below, are the Social Networks currently supported ‘out of the box’.

Twitter
LinkedIn *updated*
Facebook *updated*
Tumblr
MySpace
Plaxo
Ning *just added*
Plurk *just added*
Live Journal *just added*
Yahoo Profiles *just added*
Yahoo Meme *just added*
Posterous *BRAND NEW*

Do you think your company could benefit from entering the evolving social network market? If you think the answer is yes and you don’t want to spend hours updating multiple sites, give me a call on +44(0)1473 272002 or email matt@socialmediapack.co.uk

Development of Social Media Pack continues alongside its rapidly increasing customer base.  In order to gauge areas of further development, we are asking our Readers / Twitter Followers/ Facebook Fans to fill out our Poll in which we are asking “Which Social Network Directly Benefits Your Business”.

Please take 30 seconds to complete the poll.

Thanks in advance

Matt

John Ballance, from UcallUsave has launched his new blog powered by Social Media Pack.

UcallUsave – or More Power to your Pocket, links to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Plaxo and LinkedIn. To view UcallUsave, click here.

We look forward to continuing to work with John to grow his business using the power of Social Media.