I’m sure there are plenty of you who are too excited for the NFL Kickoff 2011 to notice any small changes over at Bing.com. Or maybe you are celebrating the new football season by playing some Tecmo Super Bowl 2012 (I highly recommend this one).

Well we’ll have none of those fun and games here at WebRanking. Only serious business for us, and today I’m here to write about Bing, and the subtle new changes to their homepage. This may or may not just be in preparation for their expected HTML 5 homepage, either way, it’s a nice change. Especially for those of you who didn’t know there was a way to actually find out what the image you were looking at actually was. Oh yes, there certainly was.

Continue reading “Bing.com Refreshes Homepage, Launches New Layout (Not HTML5 Yet)” »

In a progressive and highly tactical move, Bing has added a small and significant Social feature to their home page: the Facebook “Like” button.

Bing is the first search engine to add the Like feature to their home page. In truth this is probably not even something that Google could do as they do not have any featured daily or consistently changing content that an audience would engage with. However, since Google and Bing have repeatedly tried to mimic the others features, it would not surprise me if Google did copy this implementation and use it for their occasional holiday and event homepage doodle logos.

Why is this Significant?

Continue reading “Bing’s Small and Powerful Social Media Marketing Move – Facebook “Like” Button Now on Home Page” »

I’ve always had an affinity for science. At a very young age I owned a microscope and a junior science kit from which I conducted ground breaking research into boogers, dead bugs and saliva. 2nd graders across this country are still reaping the benefiting from my saliva to spit wad ratio theory.

For Christmas one year my prized gift was a telescope, which opened up this young child’s mind to an entirely new and amazing world of planets, stars, solar systems, Uranus jokes, and the dressing (or should I say undressing) habits of the cute girl down the block who I had a serious crush on.

Thinking back, these early forays into science might help to explain my devotion to the movie Weird Science and my serious intention to build my very own Super Model through the use of technology, a little gumption and yep, you guessed it: Science.

Today I still like music of Oingo Boingo and Thomas Dolby, have the Science Channel as a Favorite on the cable remote control, and frequently answer the question, “What dead historical person would you most like to meet?” with Asimov, Einstein, Sagan and Newton.

“Hello, my name is Chris Lister and I’m a science geek.”

Continue reading “20 Takeaways from The Science of Timing Webinar #TimeSci” »

The Red & Black Café is a worker owned, collectively managed, anarchist friendly, vegan coffee shop and restaurant located here in Portland, Oregon. A curiosity in some parts of the country, but here in the Northwest just another place to get a vegan meal and a cup of coffee… unless that is; you’re a Portland Police officer.

Recently the Red & Black café made national news when they asked a uniformed Officer to leave the premises because his presence reportedly made some of the other patrons uncomfortable. See, the Red & Black has a Safer Space policy, and according to reports, one of the “owners” asked the officer to leave (after they sold him his cup of coffee) because a good number of their patrons don’t feel safe around the police.

Continue reading “Red & Black vs. Black & White: Yelp Publicity Story for Small Businesses” »

There has been a lot of discussion as of late regarding Facebook and their new “Your Information is not as private as you might have thought it was” privacy policy. While I really don’t have anything new to add directly to this conversation that hasn’t already been said, it does lead to a discussion about the importance of filtering your social media presence for both your personal and professional personas.

By keeping the following simple guidelines in mind you can hopefully avoid those awkward “I can’t believe my Mom now knows I party like that” moments.

Continue reading “3 Social Media Guidelines for Keeping Your Private Parts Private” »

I love you. 

No, scratch that. I hate you. 

Wait, please don’t unfollow me.  I didn’t really mean that.  I’m sorry. I was…drunk, yeah that’s it. I wasn’t thinking straight. Really, it’s not you…it’s me. 

I really do love you…but to be honest, I think I might hate you at the same time.

We have been seeing each other casually now for quite some time, but I have to wonder where this is going?  I remember the early days of our relationship, when you were just an occasional blog post, or we would slum around together on SixDegrees & Friendster. 

Boy, the times sure have changed and you are more popular then ever before.  Everyone is talking about you and seems to want a piece of you.  Maybe it is out of jealousy, but it  hurts to hear my friends and Search colleagues talk about how you “put out” great results when they are with you. 

Personally, I don’t like to tweet and tell.

Continue reading “A Love Hate Letter to Social Media” »

Facebook was making a little news on Monday, as they launched a new search interface that allows members to view all posted results from the entire network of registered Facebook users, or just results from current Facebook friends. This new “Everyone” filter is very similar to Twitter’s search feature, as it allows you to monitor the entire Facebook network for information and updates on real time news and events. This feature was tremendously popular during the recent Iranian elections, as it allowed users to stay up to date when information from other, more traditional media outlets was scarce.

Continue reading “Facebook in the News – Adds Live Search and Acquires FriendFeed” »

Anyone doubting the power and pull of social media needs look no further then the impromptu gathering last night / this morning at Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square, where through the power of Twitter and Facebook, a crowd of thousands showed up to hang out with the elusive and hilarious Dave Chappelle. Continue reading ““I’m Social, Bi$%ch!”” »