Peter Heffring is president and CEO of Expion, a social software company that empowers retailers, brands and agencies to localize and manage their social marketing efforts. Founded in 2009, the company is privately held and headquartered in Raleigh, N.C.
If the f8 announcements have taught us anything, it’s that Facebook change is constant. For users, that means getting acquainted with and complaining about new features regularly. For marketers, it means adapting to the changing user behaviors that the new platform will inspire.
While it’s too early to gauge specifics, changing Facebook user behavior will likely give local marketers distinct advantages over bigger, national brands.
SEE ALSO: 5 Ways Facebook’s New Features Will Fuel Social Shopping
On average, my company has seen that local marketers like retailers and franchisees have much higher user engagement rates on Facebook than national chains or brands. While local marketers tend to have fewer fans, in some cases, they boast 50 times the user engagement – comments, posts and “Likes” – than their bigger, national competitors.
The new Facebook updates are designed to create more engagement overall, and two of the changes could favor local marketers.
Users Can Designate Brand Posts as Top Stories
The new top stories functionality will ensure that loyal fans don’t miss posts from the brands they care about most. As always, getting that attention means creating compelling content — and, by default, localized content tends to be more relevant.
For instance, if you’re hosting a Halloween party, are you more likely to enter a “scariest Halloween decorations” contest put on by a local shop, or by a national chain that may not be in your neighborhood? Which contest do you think you’d have better odds at winning? The analogy works regardless which type of brand, or the content it ultimately posts. Local relevance increases the probability of engagement, every time. The new Facebook top stories functionality creates an additional opportunity for them to stay at the forefront of users’ minds.
The New Algorithm Will Prioritize News Feed Content to Favor the Most “Engaging” Posts
Though Facebook hasn’t fully implemented Graphrank, the new content algorithm, the update is designed to further help users cut through the clutter. Graphrank favors the posts that users interact with most. Since localized content tends to have higher levels of engagement, content from local marketers could potentially gain priority.
Local Marketing for Big Brands
So how can bigger brands use these updates to their advantage? The key is to think like a local marketer. In my company’s work with franchises like Applebee’s, we’ve learned that the most engaging Facebook content doesn’t typically come from the corporate marketing team — it comes from individual store locations. Corporate marketing is no match against the thousands of employees physically interacting with customers on a daily basis.
Tapping local employees’ collective wisdom is like being able to run hundreds or thousands of multivariate tests. Particularly savvy corporate teams have learned to track their local teams’ content, to analyze the best strategies for when, why and what to post, and then to integrate that knowledge into a broader strategy.
Not every brand has the ability or the need to implement a fully localized Facebook content strategy. However, bigger brands can learn from smaller, local companies as they market across the new Facebook.
More About: algorithm, Business, contributor, Facebook, features, Marketing 
European Union regulations require cell phone vendors to include micro USB connectors as a means of standardizing charging options for cell phones, a necessary move to cut down on the plethora of mutually incompatible charging options that have proliferated through the mobile phone industry. Rather than alter the iPhone itself, Apple has instead begun offering a micro USB adapter that connects via the existing 30-pin dock connector. Thus far it appears to be available only in the UK Apple Store, and at £8.00 it seems fairly inexpensive as far as Apple's accessories go. It will be available on October 14.
The adapter will allow you to sync and charge any iPhone (except the original 2007 model) via a micro USB cable connected to your computer, and you can charge your iPhone from a charger with a micro USB connection. This means you no longer have to rely on Apple's somewhat expensive dock cables if the one that comes with your iPhone breaks and you don't have a spare.
EU regulations do allow for Apple to offer the adapter instead of altering the iPhone itself, so Apple is now in full compliance with the standards.Apple unveils dock to micro USB adapter to comply with EU standards originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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If you scoffed at the news that Apple's Siri would only be available on the iPhone 4S, thinking that you could just use the standard Siri app that was still available on the App Store, then scoff no more. The freely available Siri app has been removed from the App Store completely, and as TechCrunch reports, the whole service is being taken down in advance of the official debut of the app as part of iOS 5. TUAW reader Luc reports that the current app now gives a note as it starts up that the app will be "leaving for home" on October 15th, so you have until then to enjoy the app as is if you happen to still have it installed. Presumably at that point, the old service will end, and you'll have to buy an iPhone 4S if you want access to the new service.
This basically makes sense: Apple's trying to sell devices, and it wouldn't really work to have a version of the service out there running around for free, even if that service isn't as integrated. Apple's done the same thing with other companies they've picked up and made official, including CoverFlow back in the day.
Unfortunately, if you're currently a big Siri user, then you'll have to upgrade your handset to keep using the service as is -- there is no built-in plan to let you keep using the current app. Original Siri service is dead, long live Apple Siri originally appeared on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Tue, 04 Oct 2011 16:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Google+ Hangouts API
The Google+ Hangouts API allows you to develop collaborative apps that run
inside of a Google+ Hangout. Hangout apps behave much like normal web
apps, but with the addition of the rich, real-time functionality provided by
the Hangouts APIs. Apps have the ability to control
aspects of the user interface, synchronize data between hangout participants,
and respond to various events in the hangout.
We are launching the Hangouts API initially as a Developer Preview. We'll be
gathering feedback during this early phase
and using it to rapidly improve the API, so be aware that functionality is
likely to change. You'll find that we've added additional tools directly in
the hangout itself to help you build your apps more quickly.
Getting started is easy. First, build your app
or just start with one of our pre-built examples
like Talking Heads, which changes your avatar into a talking Android of your choice.
Next, register it in the APIs Console,
and tell us who on your team should be able to load your app. Then,
start a hangout with your app!
As always, if you have any questions, please let us know.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011 | 11:09 AM
Thank you to all of you who tried out our first Google+ API release and let us know how you were using it. And thank you also to those of you who asked for more. In the spirit of releasing early and often, today we’ve released some of the new features that you requested.
Search for it
Last month we launched search in Google+, and now it’s available in the API. You can search for public posts using the new activities.search method by sending the following HTTP request:
GET
https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/activities?query=cookie%20recipes&orderBy=best&key=[yourAPIKey]
This method searches across the body and comments of public posts. It returns the following JSON encoded output (excerpted for brevity):
{
"kind": "plus#activityFeed",
"title": "Plus Search for cookie recipes",
"updated": "2011-09-30T16:57:34.479Z",
"id": "tag:google.com,2010:buzz-search-feed:x4rIYTKpR7NZCL8Id8RHXQ",
"items": [
{
"kind": "plus#activity",
“id”: “123”,
"title": "You have to try these out.",
"object": {
"objectType": "note",
"content": "I’m baking halloween cookies!",
},
{
"kind": "plus#activity",
“id”: “456”,
"title": "Cookies",
"object": {
"objectType": "note",
"content": "Cookies and milk for dinner. Don’t judge me.",
},
]
}
You can search for people by using the people.search method:
GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/people?query=vic%20gundotra&key=[yourAPIKey]
This searches across public profile information including fields such as name, bio, location, tag line, and description.
The rest of the conversation
Our first API release let you retrieve public posts. We’ve now added ways for you to see how people are publicly engaging with those posts -- you can find out who reshared a post or who +1’d a post, and you can read the comments on a post.
The new method people.listByActivity supports retrieving resharers and +1’ers by sending the following HTTP requests:
GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/activities/{activityId}/people/resharers?key=[yourAPIKey]
GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/activities/{activityId}/people/plusoners?key=[yourAPIKey]
And comments can be retrieved by the new comments.list and comments.get methods:
GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/activities/{activityId}/comments?key=[yourAPIKey]
GET https://www.googleapis.com/plus/v1/comment/{commentId}?key=[yourAPIKey]
Tell us what you think
As an API developer, I love seeing what people build on top of the APIs I’ve worked on. We have been reading your posts on the Discussion Board and issue tracker and I am excited to see more of your creative ideas. We will continue incorporating your feedback into our design discussions, so please keep it coming.
Follow the conversation on Google+.
Posted by Jordanna Chord, Software Engineer, Google+ API Team
Signaling its growing commitment to advertising, Twitter has launched an advertising blog and a Twitter feed devoted to the category.
The blog notes that marketers have, on average, a 3% to 5% engagement rate for Twitter’s Promoted Tweets in search, which trumps response rates for most forms of digital advertising (except search advertising). The blog and the new Twitter feed, @TwitterAds, are designed to inform the ad community about the company’s related activities.
Twitter, which has been around for six years, just launched advertising products like Promoted Tweets, Promoted Trends and Promoted Accounts, last year. Since then, the company has moved a bit slower than some analysts thought on the advertising front, but now appears to be kicking things into high gear with a new London ad sales office, its first foreign post, and the inclusion of advertising messages in users’ feeds.
Facebook, which also continues to evolve its advertising platform, has also made more overtures toward the ad industry recently, including Facebook Studio, a site that aims to provide a resource for agencies and marketers.
Image courtesy of Flickr, shawncampbell
More About: Advertising, Facebook, Twitter 
Porting mobile apps across systems is, to put it kindly, an inelegant process. There's considerable work involved — so much so that developers are sometimes forced to limit their efforts to one platform.
PhoneGap, an open-source mobile framework, offers an alternative: It helps developers build a common codebase for their apps so the apps work across devices and systems.
I recently spoke with Joe Bowser (@infil00p), creator of PhoneGap's Android implementation, to get his take on the strengths and limitations of PhoneGap and what developers need to know before putting it to use. Bowser will dive into a number of related topics during his session at next week's Android Open conference.
Our interview follows. (Note: this interview was conducted before Adobe announced its acquisition of PhoneGap's parent company, Nitobi.)
What is PhoneGap and why should mobile developers consider using it?
Joe Bowser: PhoneGap is an application framework that allows developers to use HTML, JavaScript and CSS to create apps that are present as first-class applications on the phone. That means the apps have their own icons and operate similarly to native applications without a browser frame around them. They are distributed via the application stores, such as the Android Market and the Apple App Store, and they have access to a set of native functions to further make them work like native apps.
Developers use PhoneGap because it allows them to have a common codebase for all their application code. It doesn't force developers to reinvent the wheel every time they move from platform to platform.
Are there downsides to using PhoneGap?
Joe Bowser: You are subject to the limitations of the browser and the JavaScript engine that comes with your device. On Android 2.3, this isn't too bad. Earlier versions of Android don't support certain features, and many of them use older JavaScript interpreters, which can impact an application. Also, there are certain things that are better implemented in native code, like cryptography or 3-D graphics. Most apps don't use features like this — they simply display information, which the web does well.
Android Open, being held October 9-11 in San Francisco, is a big-tent meeting ground for app and game developers, carriers, chip manufacturers, content creators, OEMs, researchers, entrepreneurs, VCs, and business leaders. Save 20% on registration with the code AN11RAD
What challenges did you face when creating the Android PhoneGap implementation?
Joe Bowser: The Android PhoneGap implementation was our first implementation after the iPhone, so there were questions about whether this was possible at all. At that time, the Android 1.0 SDK was just being released, and the only devices that ran Android were the HTC Dream and T-Mobile G1. This has obviously changed, but the most challenging thing is still testing on all the real devices that are out there. Every device has its own implementation of the Android OS and its own implementation of the WebKit rendering engine.
What's the best way for PhoneGap developers to handle device-specific needs?
Joe Bowser: It depends on the feature set. Most applications don't need many device-specific features beyond the user interface, but there are numerous plugins that can help with this approach. The best approach is to decide what features you need and to use only those features. There are many applications that have permissions turned on that they don't need. For example, a simple ebook doesn't need access to your phone state, GPS or contacts.
What is a hybrid app?
Joe Bowser: A hybrid application is one that has features of both a web application and a native application. Certain features, such as Image Capture, NFC or Android OpenAccessory, may be implemented natively since there is currently no way to do this in JavaScript. But the application logic and the UI are implemented using web technologies to allow for a consistent and unique user experience across devices.
This interview was edited and condensed.
Related:

Porting mobile apps across systems is, to put it kindly, an inelegant process. There's considerable work involved — so much so that developers are sometimes forced to limit their efforts to one platform.
PhoneGap, an open-source mobile framework, offers an alternative: It helps developers build a common codebase for their apps so the apps work across devices and systems.
I recently spoke with Joe Bowser (@infil00p), creator of PhoneGap's Android implementation, to get his take on the strengths and limitations of PhoneGap and what developers need to know before putting it to use. Bowser will dive into a number of related topics during his session at next week's Android Open conference.
Our interview follows. (Note: this interview was conducted before Adobe announced its acquisition of PhoneGap's parent company, Nitobi.)
What is PhoneGap and why should mobile developers consider using it?
Joe Bowser: PhoneGap is an application framework that allows developers to use HTML, JavaScript and CSS to create apps that are present as first-class applications on the phone. That means the apps have their own icons and operate similarly to native applications without a browser frame around them. They are distributed via the application stores, such as the Android Market and the Apple App Store, and they have access to a set of native functions to further make them work like native apps.
Developers use PhoneGap because it allows them to have a common codebase for all their application code. It doesn't force developers to reinvent the wheel every time they move from platform to platform.
Are there downsides to using PhoneGap?
Joe Bowser: You are subject to the limitations of the browser and the JavaScript engine that comes with your device. On Android 2.3, this isn't too bad. Earlier versions of Android don't support certain features, and many of them use older JavaScript interpreters, which can impact an application. Also, there are certain things that are better implemented in native code, like cryptography or 3-D graphics. Most apps don't use features like this — they simply display information, which the web does well.
Android Open, being held October 9-11 in San Francisco, is a big-tent meeting ground for app and game developers, carriers, chip manufacturers, content creators, OEMs, researchers, entrepreneurs, VCs, and business leaders. Save 20% on registration with the code AN11RAD
What challenges did you face when creating the Android PhoneGap implementation?
Joe Bowser: The Android PhoneGap implementation was our first implementation after the iPhone, so there were questions about whether this was possible at all. At that time, the Android 1.0 SDK was just being released, and the only devices that ran Android were the HTC Dream and T-Mobile G1. This has obviously changed, but the most challenging thing is still testing on all the real devices that are out there. Every device has its own implementation of the Android OS and its own implementation of the WebKit rendering engine.
What's the best way for PhoneGap developers to handle device-specific needs?
Joe Bowser: It depends on the feature set. Most applications don't need many device-specific features beyond the user interface, but there are numerous plugins that can help with this approach. The best approach is to decide what features you need and to use only those features. There are many applications that have permissions turned on that they don't need. For example, a simple ebook doesn't need access to your phone state, GPS or contacts.
What is a hybrid app?
Joe Bowser: A hybrid application is one that has features of both a web application and a native application. Certain features, such as Image Capture, NFC or Android OpenAccessory, may be implemented natively since there is currently no way to do this in JavaScript. But the application logic and the UI are implemented using web technologies to allow for a consistent and unique user experience across devices.
This interview was edited and condensed.
Related:

Gone are the days of trying to navigate your college’s confusing email system. Instead, you can sync up your personal Gmail account to your school email account. Google has announced that over half of the country’s most revered institutions have switched to Google Apps for Education to help improve communication and collaboration on campus.
Google publicized the news after U.S. News and World Report released their annual college rankings. Out of this year’s top 100 universities, Google serves 61 of them, including Boston University, Harvard and Brandeis. “While this list of schools represents traditions of academic excellence that span centuries, these institutions also clearly recognize the importance, and value, of modern technology in academia,” wrote Tom Mills, the director of education for Google. Fourteen million students, faculty and staff are now using Google Apps for Education, which includes Docs, Groups and Calendar, among other Google features. Within three weeks since Google began hosting webmail accounts for Harvard, 98 percent of the 5,610 students made the switch, according to Harvard’s IT site. Backupify, a Boston-based startup that’s become the leading backup provider for cloud based data, including Google Apps, has certainly seen the increase in popularity. “Gmail is growing at rapid speed,” said Kristin Dziadul, the marketing analyst at Backupify. “Gmail is the most widely used app within the apps family, and schools can get it, virtually, for free.” Although some higher ed institutes seem weary to use the service because they think it’s so public, others have made the switch under budget constraints and have, since, never looked back. Between the cost of purchasing an internal email system and the hiring of an IT team to maintain that system, things get expensive. “When schools are reevaluating their budget, they’re looking more to Google Apps,” Dziadul said. “You don’t need an entire IT team, because Google has dedicated IT experts who are on-hand 24/7 to make sure it’s up and running.” Because most students already use Gmail, the swap only feels natural, and with the different services Google offers, schools are only saving themselves money in the long run. Dziadul said that everyone she’s talked to within the higher education sector has said they’re either considering switching over to Google, are in the process of doing it or have already implemented the program. “Backupify has definitely seen an increase because of it,” Dziadul said. Is Gmail THE mail? Should more schools be making the switch?
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