I've seen a lot of complaints about the new look of Facebook.  There's even 3 large Facebook Groups against the new layout with almost 5 million members between them (could be some duplicate members - I didn't check).  If you visit any of these groups, almost everyone is demanding that Facebook change it back.  Well, the good news is that, for the most part, you can change it back yourself.  If you want to get away from the confusing News Feeds and get back to your beloved Status Updates, check out this very short video - this is pretty simple :



So to sum it up, go to your Facebook Home page, click "more" at the bottom of the left menu, drag "status updates" to the top of the list, and then click "status updates".  Now things are pretty much back to the way they were and you can enjoy Facebook like you did before.

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UPDATED:

After some input, it turns out the solution above may not be the best.  If Status Updates is the default, you don't see links, images and video.  Therefore, it might be best to make Live Feeds your default.  The problem with the feeds is that they limit the number of friends they show posts for by default.  The good news is that you can change this as well.  Again, here's a video to show how this is done:



To recap,

1. click more on the left menu
2. drag "news feeds" to the top (if it's not already)
3. click "live feed" above your content if "news feed" is currently the default
4. scroll to the bottom of the page and click edit option
5. replace the number of friends with 5000 (the maximum allowed)
6. click save. 

This should be more like the Facebook most of you are used to.

The FTC just released its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising, and if you blog or are involved in social media and ever make product review or testimonial, this is guide is must read for you.  The guidelines go into effect December 1, 2009 and outline disclosure requirements when you post about a product or service.

The Guide provides a large list of examples of scenarious in which you would or would not be required to disclose relationships with product or service provides.  Even in cases where you provide honest endorsement in which the product or service provider has no control over your content, you may still be required to disclose.   Failure to include proper disclosure can result in fines up to $11,000 per instance, so the rule here is, don't take chances.  Be sure to read the Guide and understand your responsibilities.  It's just 81 pages and could be well worth your time.

I believe disclosure when making endorsements is the ethical thing to do and support the intent of the Guide.  My personal feeling is that some of the requirements are subjective, so it's best to err on the side of caution.  Also, the Guide fails to tell how you should make your disclosure - it just tells when you should make a disclosure.  Another issue with the Guide is that it doesn't directly address your requirements for existing endorsements - are you required to check your entire history of reviews and testimonials to ensure the relationships have been properly disclosed?  For these reasons, a site-wide Disclosure Policy (similar to your site's privacy policy or terms of use) might be a good idea.  A good resource is DisclosurePolicy.org, which has a free policy generator, a great blog on the subject and additional information about blog disclosure -  (DISCLOSURE : I do not have any relationship with DisclosurePolicy.org, nor did I receive any compensation for making this endorsement). 

As of this posting, I don't have a disclosure policy, but it is definitely in my To Do list.

Also, if you've read the FTC Guide on Endorsements, I would love to hear your opinion.

The web is global and has really expanded the reach of many businesses, and search engines are a great tool to give them exposure in the world marketplace.  However, a lot of folks don't realize that these same engines are an excellent way to reach those customers and clients that are just around the corner.  It's also a lot easier to achieve visibility locally than to compete for good search engine placement against business worldwide.  Even if you provide your products and services worldwide, don't forget to reach out to those a little more close to home.  Here's some tips to help you succeed with local search.

• Get Listed
  
  The big search engines all provide tools to allow you to submit your business details to be included in their local search indexes with plenty of detail.  In addition to your just your website and business name, you can include your address and phone (obviously) as well as business category, hours of operation, accepted forms of payment, an image of your business, if free or paid parking is available and other relevant information.  After providing your business details, you will generally be required to verify that you are the owner (or a representative of the business).  This may be done by mail, email or phone, and varies depending on the search engine.  You should start by submitting your site to the following local search services:
  
  www.google.com/local/add
  listings.local.yahoo.com/csubmit
  ssl.bing.com/listings/BusinessSearch.aspx
  biz.yelp.com/signup
  
  Also, google shows listings from other local search services (like yahoo, yelp and others as shown below), so if you want to try to increase your market share, it helps to list your business in a variety of sources.




• GeoTag Your Site
  
  In your HTML, you can place some tags in the header to help the search engines know where your site is located.  This is done by setting up Geotags, and it's a pretty simple process.  GeoTags look something like this:
  
  
  [ code ]

  <meta name="geo.position" content="35.644707, -97.545419">
  <meta name="geo.placename" content="Travis Langley & Associates, Edmond, Oklahoma, United States">
  <meta name="geo.region" content="US-OK">
  
  
  If you need to convert and address to lattitude and longitude for the geo.position tag, try mygeoposition.com.

Up Next - hCards and Microformats.
Check back soon for part 2 of this article.  It's late -  I'm off to bed...