Citibank said it held the event in response to its recent small business survey, which revealed a majority of small business owners are not using social media. The live webcast provided small business owners with an overview of how to use the power of social media to market and expand their business.

source www.smallbusinessnewz.com/topnews

- A global navigation bar at the top of the page that provides convenient access to all LinkedIn services.

- Simplified local navigation within each of the LinkedIn areas (Profile, Contacts, Groups, etc.).

- More room available for page content. Less scrolling.

- A cleaner, less-cluttered look.

Here is what it looks like:

“We began the redesign effort several months ago by analyzing how people use LinkedIn,” says LinkedIn’s Kevin Bury. “We looked at what features people use the most and pored over several years of data from usability research on the site. Armed with this information we began doing design explorations of how to better organize LinkedIn features, and make them more convenient to find and use.”

“We factored into this effort additional features we knew were coming,” he adds. “We narrowed down the designs to a few candidates we felt were strong contenders. We then prototyped these designs and had users perform tasks with the prototypes in the usability lab. We went through numerous iterations until we arrived at a design we felt worked the best.  One of the key features of the new design is that it allows much more space for page content – information about you and your professional network.”

LinkedIn says it will be paying attention to user feedback, and there is no word on whether or not changes will be permanent. That’s what testing is for though. The company also makes no mention of whether or not a greater number of users will be able to see the new design, and if so, when that would be.

Winners of the 2009 Motors Master contest will receive a trip to Las Vegas to attend the Specialty Equipment Market Association Show (SEMA) and receive an eBay Motors shopping spree.

Participants will make a short video about their favorite car, truck or motorcycle and explain why they would make the best do-it-yourself project expert for their category, and upload it to the Motors Master website. Judges and the public will vote for the top contestants in the following categories:

* Muscle cars
* Tuners
* Off-road vehicles
* Motorcycles

eBay Motors will bring the winner in each category to the SEMA Show in Las Vegas from November 4-7, where their winning project vehicle may be displayed for over 100,000 attendees. Each winner will receive $2,500 eBay Motors shopping spree to buy parts and accessories.

The projects will be selected on the participant’s videos and their written descriptions of how they used eBay Motors to drive their projects and why they should be chosen to win. Video entries must be submitted by August 31, and voting will continue through September 14, 2009. Ten finalists will be chosen for each category and the four winners will be named in early October.

source: www.webpronews.com/topnews

Google has two favorite pages listed – the AdWords page and the iGoogle page. Both of them have been around longer. iGoogle came on the scene last month it looks like, and the AdWords page has been around for quite some time. It doesn’t look like Fans of the Official Google Facebook Page will be getting access to much more than Official Google Blog posts, but that could certainly change in the future.

Google seems to have been more interested in communicating via Twitter in the past. A while back the company launched a slew of Google accounts for various products, and have acquired piles of followers on those.

Google launching a Facebook Page certainly makes considering the enormous popularity of the social network. What makes less sense is why they have just now gotten around to launching it. To be honest, I’ve never noticed that they were lacking one.

I’ve always considered Google to be one of the premier examples of a company that knows how to do corporate blogging. I regularly read most of their blogs for announcements, and most are frequently updated and their directory of blogs does a fantastic job of keeping interested parties informed of what is happening throughout various parts of the company.

It looks like they’ve got some work to do on the corporate social media use front though. On the other hand, they’re Google. It’s not like they have to worry about word of mouth too much.

source: www.webpronews.com/topnews/