5 Reasons Why Google+ Hangouts On Air is so cool:

1. You can create a live streaming web show for FREE!
2. You can create a live streaming web show with almost no technical Knowledge.
3. You can make your live stream contain a conversation between multiple people!
4. You can broadcast this live webshow on your YouTube Channel.
5. As soon as the show is over, YouTube automagically converts the webshow into a video archive of the show!

Really, in the world of the web, it doesn’t get much cooler than this. AND, I can’t believe I hadn’t tried it before today.

Google introduced this feature in May – 5 whole months ago. It’s so AWESOME, that everybody should be talking about it.

Google+ On Air Resources

Here are some resources for learning more about Google+ On Air, and how you could use it to promote your business.

• Google Plus Hangout Basics:
  http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/
• Google Plus Hangouts On Air
  http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/hangouts/onair.html
• A useful guide to Google Plus Hangouts on Air from Social Media Examiner: 

  http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/google-hangouts-on-air-guide/

 Some Ideas for using Google+ On Air (Google’s Promotional Video)

Studies have shown that facebook posts containing an image are up to 3 times more likely to get clicked than posts that just contain a link.

Knowing that, it totally makes sense that you would want all of your blog posts to have a good image show up when someone shares it on facebook.

Stand out with WordPress Featured Images

For most modern wordpress themes (including the Genesis Theme Framework) this means that you need to assign a featured image to your post. If you don’t know about the featured image, you aren’t alone. It was introduced in wordpress 2.9, so it’s been around for almost 3 years now, but a lot of people still don’t know about it or understand how it works.

Featured images commonly do these things:

• Show up on blog listing pages.
• Show up in Sliders that display featured blog posts.
• Show up in featured blog post areas as a thumbnail.
• Show up as the thumbnail that gets shared to Facebook.

Step by Step

Here’s a step by step tutorial on how to get the youtube video screenshot into your blog post as a featured image.

1. Go to the youtube video that you have just embedded into your blog post.
2. Right click on a blank area of the video page and select view source.
3. Find the line in the source code that says og:image. This is the line that tells facebook what image should be used for sharing.
4. Grab the image url that ends in mqdefault.jpg, and paste it into the address window. (If you want a higher resolution image, you can replace the m with an h in the name so that the filename is hqdefault.jpg).
5.  Right click on the image, and save image as.
6. Give it a search engine friendly name such as  your-keyword-phrase.png
7. Then inside of the blog post go to featured image on the right hand side and select add featured image.
8. Find the image that you saved from youtube, and select it.
9. When it has uploaded, scroll down to the bottom and click use as featured image.
10. After doing this, the image has been assigned as the featured image and you can click update or publish to update the blog post with this featured image.

Walkthrough using Images

Here are some screenshots to guide you through the process if the instructions aren’t clear:

[Show as slideshow]

If this tutorial has been helpful, leave a comment below.

Thanks!

The folks over at Applidium have unraveled some of the mystery behind how Siri Works.

Their post on cracking Siri also includes links to some tools they developed in the process of figuring out the system and protocol that Siri uses.

Read More here: http://applidium.com/en/news/cracking_siri/

Music is more important to the human race than it often receives credit for. Music connects us with our intuition. It creates discipline and focus in its students, and it even creates structure and synchronization in the brain.

It was also awesome getting all 300 people in the audience up and dancing. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Music and mood are closely interrelated — listening to a sad or happy song on the radio can make you feel more sad or happy. However, such mood changes not only affect how you feel, they also change your perception. For example, people will recognize happy faces if they are feeling happy themselves.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110427101606.htm#

Posted via email from Vi Wickam’s posterous

Each of these aspects of being are intertwined. Emotional upset will affect us spiritually. Spiritual disconnect will lead us to be hardened emotionally and physically. And, physical acts of creating peace and calm lead to emotional stability, and a feeling of spiritual connection with the Creator.

We are physical beings, and our basic physical needs must be met to allow for higher functioning on a mental and spiritual level. This includes proper rest and nutrition. Inadequate, or improper nutrition, leaves us unable to think clearly, as does insufficient rest.

Our bodies also require physical activity. We were not designed to sit on our butts all day watching TV or working on the computer.

When the physical needs have been met, we can tend to our mental, emotional, and spiritual needs.

We live in a world that is not geared toward creating healthy individuals, so we must each take responsibility for our own lives and health.

A major new study shows that a pregnant mother’s diet not only sensitizes the fetus to those smells and flavors, but physically changes the brain directly impacting what the infant eats and drinks in the future.

“Many diseases plaguing society involve excess consumption or avoidance of certain kinds of foods,” said Restrepo, a professor of cell and developmental biology. “Understanding the factors that determine choice and ingestion, particularly the early factors, is important in designing strategies to enhance the health of the infant, child, and adult.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/12/101201095559.htm?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4cfe4ab394760f50%2C0

The workshop will be held: Thursday, December 16, 2010 from 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM (MT)

More details are available at: http://bit.ly/brandnoco

In this Work Shop you’ll learn:

• What a brand is and how it’s created
• The difference between branding, marketing, advertising and PR
• The psychological effects of colors and shapes
• Where it’s valuable to spend money on your business, and where you can save
• How to infuse your sales and marketing with joy and energy

I strongly believe in the importance of having a cohesive business identity that clearly tells the public who you are and what you do. This workshop will really help you solidify your brand so that you can put your best foot forward.

This day of learning and planning will be money well spent.

http://bit.ly/brandnoco

UPDATE: The awesome content from this branding workshop is now available as an E-Book with a companion Workbook at http://www.zapthegap.info

via sciencedaily.com

Pretty amazing, but what would be more amazing is if they could go the other direction and create other types of tissue from blood. Blood is easily and quickly replaced, and plentiful in the body. Skin, plentiful, but not so quick and easy to replace.

Posted via email from Vi Wickam’s posterous

Posted via email from Vi Wickam’s posterous