Social media channels such as social networks and blogs present powerful tools to spread information to the masses . However recent events involving an Ex-Israeli soldier who posted pictures of herself while on military duty, have led me to think about how democratic countries should handle this sharing of information now that they are faced with real-life threatening situations which may jeopardize their national security.

I have heard numerous stories of companies that checked up on potential job candidates and dismissed them based on information the companies found about the candidates on the Web. This age of openness where anything and everything can be shared has created a whole new more careful and cautious breed of social media users. Or has it?

A quick search on Google of people who have been fired for social media revealed this shocking and reasonably comprehensive list of people fired due to blogging, Facebooking or Tweeting.

The length of the list is shocking yes, but not scary. What is scary is what’s been happening lately in terms of social media affecting national security. The case of an ex-Israeli soldier is nothing compared to what happened on April 5th, 2010. WikiLeaks – the website that publishes anonymous submissions and leaks of sensitive governmental, corporate, organizational, or religious documents – leaked footage of a US Apache helicopter attacking civilians in Iraq in 2007. WikiLeaks again sparked controversy on July 25th, 2010, by releasing thousands of documents called the Afghan war diaries, which went into classified details about the state of the US war in Afghanistan.

The debate on how far freedom of expression should extend is an old one. Yet social media appears to be adding a whole new set of factors to be considered in this discussion. The ability to instantly disseminate information in a viral fashion has created a very real dilemma for institutions and countries that require a degree of discretion to survive. The problem stems from the fact that it is not possible to police and control the entire internet nation. Furthermore, in a nation without borders, who would be in charge of such policing?

As it is with all new and powerful tools, it will take time for the rules and regulations of social media to work themselves out. However it is obvious that democratic countries now face the issue of whether or not they will enact some sort of measures which will keep social media users from jeopardizing national security.

The fact that social media’s mandate will have to be defined by governing bodies in some manner over time is a certainty. Social media is one of the most powerful tools out there today, with great corporations, and even political trends, bowing to the power of its collective force – but in the great words of Spiderman’s uncle Ben: “With great power comes great responsibility. ” Most of these instances of social media run-a-muck can be avoided with users utilizing some sort of common sense. For example, if you’re serving in the military, it might not be a good idea to check-in on Foursquare. The same unwritten laws of human decency, courtesy and responsibility, still apply even after the birth of social media. In an age where “sharing is caring” – how much sharing is just too much sharing and how should institutions/countries control this endless sharing of information without becoming dictatorships?

on Sunday I gave a lecture at The Marker’s Customer Experience Conference. I spoke about: “The relationship between the brand and the consumer on social networks: From flirt to love.”

How should brands engage with consumers on social networks? You’ll see that the relationship between brands and consumers on social networks is very similar to the relationship between couples.  The presentation displays three examples of  brands that handle their social media efforts differently. HP, the third brand, clearly exemplifies how giving back to your community, being responsive and listening before selling is the best policy. Please note that the presentation is in Hebrew.

Facebook is more than a social network. It’s a platform that has changed the way we view content on the Web, the way we connect with other people and brands on the Web and the way that we express ourselves on the Web. Now with all the latest developments that Mark Zuckerberg announced during F8 and Facebook’s collaboration with partners such as Yelp and Pandora, we see that Facebook is bringing to life the vision that we all had of a future Web 3.0 where we no longer need to look for information but information finds us. Connections between people and between brands and people are happening everywhere on the Web. Facebook is connecting all these points together into what they call “The Open Graph”.

Zuckerberg writes on Facebook’s blog:

“We think that the future of the web will be filled with personalized experiences. We’ve worked with three pre-selected partners—Microsoft Docs, Yelp and Pandora—to give you a glimpse of this future, which you can access without having to login again or click to connect. For example, now if you’re logged into Facebook and go to Pandora for the first time, it can immediately start playing songs from bands you’ve liked across the web. And as you’re playing music, it can show you friends who also like the same songs as you, and then you can click to see other music they like.”

Facebook is enabling partnering websites to add the like button to their platforms and serve us content based on our interests. From now forward, the Web will be divided for us based on what we like and what we don’t like. At the same time, it’s also enabling us to connect with others who share the same interests as us across various platforms – not just Facebook.

Facebook’s Director of Platform Product Bret Taylor (previously the founder & CEO of FriendFeed) said during F8: “Once you put these ‘like’ buttons all around your site, the like buttons power a whole suite of social plugins, an “activity streams” plugin will show all activities from the Facebook user’s friend list on that third-party site. A “recommendations” plugin will provide suggested content to users. “It’s not just 10 most e-mailed articles, this is truly powerful recommendations.”

Facebook launched its Open Graph protocol with 30 partners thus far. This is a major step for Facebook as now my personal dislikes and likes are not only to be found on Facebook but rather they travel with me across various sites on the Web.

What does all this imply for the future? Does this mean the end of any small amount of privacy we still had left on the Web or is this the best thing since sliced pie? I must agree with the latter. For a long time now I’ve praised Facebook for all of its improvements and developments throughout the years. I think that Facebook does an amazing job at continuously improving its platform and this is the reason for its success. As Facebook continues to increase its user base (already at 500 million users worldwide), it continues to get better over time. Facebook is at the heart of the open graph, connecting all the dots. The only drawback? The fact that Facebook controls this Open Graph. One must be a Facebook user to enjoy all this and it will become harder over time for people to opt out of becoming a part of this revolution. A truly open platform, not controlled by one commercial company may be thought of as a more ideal situation but I must admit, that given Facebook’s leadership and innovation in the last few years, I trust Facebook in leading us on the right path to a universal open graph where all people and brands are connected in the best way possible.

When planning their future Web presence, businesses today must make sure to keep the Open Graph in mind. They will have to do so in order to survive in the digital space. With such information overload that users face today from various streams, brands will need to optimize their Web presence based on the information they gather from the Open Graph in order to maintain and increase their client/user base. Otherwise, these companies won’t stand a chance. Social engagement, social data mining, social and geo-targeting those are the keywords to remember and the terms that will lead us forward in this social revolution we are embarking on. All the information we view on the Web will increasingly become more personal, more targeted and at the same time, more open. This idea may be scary to some who fear for their privacy but I believe in the long run will only serve us all to better manage and retain the massive amount of data and increasing number of relationships (with both people and brands) that we need to deal with on a daily basis.

Brands today have the incredible opportunity of interacting with consumers on the #1 social network in the world – Facebook – and creating relationships with them that are long lasting, personal and relevant. Companies today no longer control their own brand, the power has shifted to the masses. It is the public’s desire and feedback that will decide the brand’s fate in the end. Therefore it is clearly apparent that Facebook must play a major role in every brand’s social media marketing plan.

A few facts about Facebook (taken from the site’s blog):

• More than 400 million active users
• 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
• More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
• More than 3 million active Pages on Facebook
• More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day
• Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans
• More than 250 applications have more than one million monthly active users
• There are more than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices

Facebook is now the 2nd most visited site in the world after Google and time spent on Facebook is higher than on any other site in most countries. It is clear that Facebook is an important component of any social media marketing plan, if not the most important.

Here are the 10 steps you should follow for the creation of the best Facebook Page for your brand:

1) Open Page - As a company, you should open a Facebook page. I have often seen the mistake of many companies opening a group or a personal profile for a company. Facebook has created Facebook pages for commercial companies to be able to carry on conversations with their consumers. Pages (unlike personal profiles or groups) enable brands to view insights such as fans demographics, number of interactions with fans, etc. Insights which are a necessary part of evaluating and assessing your brand’s marketing activities.

2) Content is king – When you’re initially building  your Facebook page, fill it up with interesting and relevant content. Content doesn’t need to be specifically about your brand. Find insightful articles that have to do with your company’s vision and perspective and post them. Add dynamic content such as screenshots of highlighted areas on your site, videos of explaining your service, stuff that people would be able to look at when they make the decision of joining your fan page or not. You want to make sure that before you start inviting people to your page, you’ll have good high quality content to show them. Make sure to continuously upload great content to your page on a daily basis so that fans will want to see your page on their news feed when they open up their Facebook in the morning.

3) Networking – After you’ve uploaded enough interesting content, suggest your page to relevant members in your network. Obviously the more of a social networker you are and the more connections you’ve already managed to attain in your personal network, the easier this step will be. Keep building your network of connections for the future.

4) Find your target audience – Finding the people within Facebook that will take an interest in your brand and in your campaigns and make sure they know your page exists. Are you a social network for animators? Are you offering a new, healthier product for coffee lovers? Find your relevant audience who’s already on Facebook and let them know that you’re there. In today’s world wide web, people are getting more and more used to information finding them and not vice versa. Those brands that have understood this point and are reaching out to their target audience within Facebook and creating relationships with these individuals, are already placing the competition at a huge disadvantage.

5) Keep the conversation awake – Create live discussions on your page by both utilizing the status feature and also the discussions app. Get your fans involved in your discussions, ask for their feedback, show them you care about what they have to say. Enable a free flow of conversation even if you don’t like to hear what is being said by some folks. Use this opportunity to listen to what people have to say and take control of the conversation. Be happy for the opportunity you’ve been given to win them back as customers. Always make sure to be attentive, patient and answer as quickly as possible. Remember that Facebook doesn’t sleep.

Utilize the information of the crowd to learn more about how to lead your brand forward in the market.

6) Excite people about your brand again and again – Create frequent contests and special campaigns for fans to take part in and reward them for their participation with either social or monetary incentives that have to do with your brand. In this manner you are ensuring that those people who enter your contest are potential future clients who take a true interest in your product.

7) Create a Welcome tab – A Facebook page that says “Howdy” to all the new comers is both welcoming and a good opportunity to let them know what they can find on your page. Utilize it to express the benefits of joining your page, promote special campaigns you’ve got going on at the moment, anything you like. Welcome new fans to your home on Facebook.

8 ) Bring Value – Create other tabs that are relevant to your brand – for example, a “fashion tips” tab if you’re a clothing brand, a “book reviews” tab if you’re a publisher. Build fun applications for fans and potential fans that will not only help you create exposure for your brand but will also give added value to the users who install it.

9) Utilize Facebook’s Insights - How many interactions did you have with fans this week? How many people commented on your posts? Where are your fans located? Are they mostly female or male? The answers to these questions will of course enable you to make better use of your page plan of future activities.

10) Increase your exposure – Promote your Facebook page on your email signature, on your homepage, in other social networks that you’re a part of and in all outgoing materials to bloggers and journalists. Let your employees and customers know about your page so that they can become a part of the conversation.

Building a good, solid Facebook page may look easy and it is the best Facebook pages that excel at making it look so easy, however, maintaing an online community is not at all easy. Just like any community, it has needs and thoughts and opinions and as administrators of a Facebook page we are responsible for keeping its interest and shall I even dare say turning the members of your community to patriots of your brand.

I’ve been in the social media space now for quite a few years and I meet with at least 5 companies each week who have understood the importance of utilizing social media for their businesses but are still afraid of entering their brands into the new media age.

What are they worried about? Here are the top five concerns that I’ve heard from executives and my response to them:

1) They’re afraid they’ll lose control of their brand and open themselves up to negative feedback – When you open a business and start marketing your services and exposing your brand to others, people will start talking about your brand. And this is what you wanted right? This is why you exposed them to your brand in the first place.  People are going to be talking about your brand no matter what. The question is: Do you want to be a part of the dialogue or do you want to just play ostrich and ignore what people are saying? If a person is dissatisfied with your services, do you prefer he opens up this discussion in a “I hate <your brand>” group opened up by another hater or do you prefer that he come to your page and post the complaint there allowing you to respond appropriately and even perhaps win him back as a client?
Social media didn’t create the dissatisfied customer – it only allowed him a platform to express his frustration. If you don’t give him the stage to speak, he will do it elsewhere and believe me, it will cause a great deal more damage to your brand if you’re not there to respond and open to criticism.
When we speak of social media, we speak of conversational marketing – listening before selling, opening a dialogue with the user and not just throwing a blinking banner in his face. Brands need to make that switch in their heads and understand that social media is SOCIAL. Many conversations will be positive and you will have these nice messages recorded for everyone to see publicly – your bosses, your investors, your customers and potential customers:

Some conversations may be negative but these conversations should be seen as welcomed opportunities to gain back customers. If you utilize social media effectively and are alert to what people are saying about you online, then you can also respond in a timely and intelligent manner. When you’re dazed and confused and too afraid to see what people may be saying about you, that’s when the conversation can get out of control and your branding and positioning can go out the window. Companies who understand social media know that by using social media they are increasing the number of positive responses to their brand and making sure to control and decrease the negative responses by showing people that they actually care about what they have to say.

2) They don’t understand it – Companies fear social media because they don’t understand what to do with it, what to talk about, who to turn to. They often time try to do it in-house without the appropriate guidance, fail miserably and then say that social media doesn’t work. Don’t hire your friend’s son who is very active on Facebook to do your marketing strategy for you. Just like you wouldn’t fix your car in-house or do your PR in-house, neither should you start doing social media on your own without having a social media guru at your side. And when I say guru, I mean someone who has had a good track record in creating successful social media campaigns for other companies in the past. Once you have such a guide at your side and you begin to understand what social media is all about, then you will not be afraid of it anymore and you will start to recognize the infinite number of amazing opportunities that social media will open your brand to.

3) The effectiveness of social media is hard to measure - Since social media is still in it’s diapers, it took a little while for tools tracking the ROI on social media campaigns to emerge, however today we have a suite of different tools that allow companies to track even the most minute details in the effectiveness of their social media campaigns. Tools like Google Analytics which allow us to track the traffic coming into our site as well as where it’s coming from has existed for years. Google alerts which allow us to see the blog posts and other sites linking back to our site have also existed for a long time. And we are now seeing an influx of services that not only allow you to easily monitor what people are saying about your brand but also see who are the top influencers, opinion leaders in your industry and more. There are numerous services that allow you to see the top influencers on twitter such as: Twitter grader and twitter analytics services such as Twitalyzer . Facebook also provides its own insights to page admins and enables admins to view information regarding the demographics of their fans and also how many interactions, comments, wall posts, etc. were found on the page. The more we learn about social media, the more tools we get to measure it. Not only are our efforts in the social media realm measurable but social media campaigns also allow us to target specific campaigns to specific niches like no other media today.

4) They’re afraid that employees will be on Facebook and twitter chatting all day – Facebook today has around 350 million users. If Facebook was a nation, it would be the world’s third most populous after China and India. Your employees are there anyway. Why not utilize the fact that they are there to help your cause? When you need to spread the word on Facebook, why not enable your employees to help you or when you finally open that fan page on Facebook, why not allow your employees to become fans and encourage them to take part in your social media activities. Dell for example, who is well known for their great twitter strategy (a strategy which has earned them $6.5 million to date), has around 200 employees working its twitter account, responding to people.

In addition, not allowing your employees to have access to the vast amount of information that can be found on social networks as well as not enabling them to use these networks as research tools nor to network with people in the industry also puts your company at a great disadvantage to your competitors who do allow their employees (and even encourage them) to use social media tools.

5) Social media is costly – This last fear is not only something that companies should not fear but it is also not true. If you consider the millions of people that you can reach using social media as opposed to the cost of buying an ad on TV or buying a banner, you’ll see that social media is one of the most cost efficient ways of reaching your target audience today.

To anyone who still thinks social media is a fad, WAKE UP. It’s not. Social media is here and it’s here to stay. If you took a look at the latest report that came out of Davos regarding social networks, you’ll see that Facebook is now the second most popular site on the internet after Google and that according to Nielsen since February 2009 people have been spending more time on social-networking sites than on e-mail, and the lead is getting bigger. The question for your brand is no longer whether to be there or not to be there. The question is WHEN will you be there and the longer you keep your head in the ground, the more you’ll lose touch with what’s happening out there in the real world.

Great Ostrich pic credit: http://blog.karmona.com

To all my devoted readers: I wanted to let you know of a new campaign that we just launched for our client HP Israel. We are giving away an awesome laptop: Mini 110C-1120EJ. For a chance to win it, all you need to do is go to HP Israel’s Facebook Fan Page , tell us where you would take it and we will help you take it there!  To my readers who are located outside of Israel – sorry guys, this campaign is only available for people located in Israel. Tell your local HP that they should learn from HP Israel!

So what are you waiting for? Check it out now and let us know to which exotic location you’d take your mini…

(Guest post by Dorine Sinigaglia)

Brands are using effective social media tools like Twitter more and more these days in creative ways to promote their brand name as a way to reach out to their consumers and attract new ones. Some brands really know how to promote their brand well – and this has been their saving force during the economic downfall over the last year. While thousands of businesses worldwide have closed down or filed bankruptcy as they watched their sales numbers plummet, many businesses actually saw an increase in sales this past year and they can thank their use of their social media network for that. If your company or brand still does not yet hold an active Twitter account – it’s time to wake up, smell the coffee and re-evaluate your strategy on ways to reach out to your consumers.

Take a close look at Starbucks‘ brand presence on Twitter (@Starbucks). The guy behind the Starbucks Twitter account runs the show like I’ve never seen it done before. According to Jennifer Van Grove from Mashable, Brad Nelson – a former Starbucks barista – is now the face behind the Starbucks Twitter account, replying to messages, promoting seasonal drinks found in local stores and helping coffee-addict-customers in every way find resolutions to their problems, questions & inquiries. Grove says it well: Brad is continuously “putting out fires left and right” – in her post 40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them. It’s really impressive to see! He turns frowns upside down as he offers solutions to customers’ complaints when seasonal drinks change over the course of time. Take a look at the below response to a customer’s disappointment when a seasonal drink she enjoyed stopped selling at her local Starbucks store (note: Brad’s response came 3 minutes after she wrote him!).

Brands on Twitter must not only engage with their consumers through conversations, but also bring them news and info not only about their brand or company but about related topics as well to hold their attention. When Brad writes customers back and replies to general inquiries about flavored frappucinos and holiday music playing in local stores, he is representing more than Starbucks’ product and service; he is representing the whole coffee industry and related information that is attached to this industry. With an average of 10 Tweets per day, Brad does more than simply promote Starbucks’ coffee brand; he engages with consumers and holds their interest to ensure they keep coming back to hear what interesting comments and updates he has to say about Starbucks.

Despite their announcement last January that they were shutting down 300 stores (and closed down another 600 in July), Starbucks remains an attractive workplace and is still ranked highly in Fortune Magazine‘s Top 100 Best Companies to Work for in 2009 – ranking in at #24 (was ranked #7 in 2008). Just last month, Adam Ostrow from Mashable wrote a post that mentioned The 50 Hottest Brands on Twitter Right Now – and Starbucks’ brand was definitely in that list of 50. Having joined Twitter at the end of November, 2006 — almost 3 years ago to date — Starbucks’ Twitter now has more than 515,000 followers. Starbucks’ Facebook presence is also amazing – with over 5 million fans to date, but since Facebook launched two years prior to Twitter in Feb. 2004 (Twitter launched in March 2006), Starbucks’ online presence got a jump start on Facebook. With an average of over 3,000 new followers daily, Starbucks’ Twitter account could reach to 1 million followers within 6 months.

In addition to their general Twitter account, Starbucks continues to find new & inventive ways of reaching out to its consumers – like using crowd sourcing, where companies let users speak their mind on their brand. Starbucks started a website called My Starbucks Idea – a website that engages with their consumers and encourages them to share their inventive ideas they have for the company and initiate discussions with other Starbucks consumers. They opened a Twitter account (@mystarbucksidea) 4 months ago and already have over 9,000 followers.

Finding new ways of earning customer’s loyalty and increasing consumer numbers is a challenging task to accomplish for any industry. Consumers don’t want to feel like services are after them solely for their money – even when they do enjoy the product. Starbucks’ Twitter presence has come up with an effective formula to do both – gain customer satisfaction and increase sales. Its online presence adds valued content for its veiwers while making sure the customer is always feeling satisfied with a solution to an inquiry. By taking a brief look at Starbucks’ Twitter presence, it is simple to see why people keep coming back for more lattes. Yes, their fond love for peppermint flavored coffee is a big factor; but overall, it’s the complete customer experience they receive – in the store and online.

Dorine Sinigaglia is the Account & Content Manager at Blonde 2.0

Dorine is a dedicated individual with experience in account management, sales and business development for large corporations. She gets to know all the ins and outs of each account she handles and gets up close and personal with everyone she works with.

(Guest Post by Dorine Sinigaglia)

For years, I have been using social networks like Facebook & Myspace to reconnect with old friends and make new ones. As much as I love my social networking time and devote hours of my day to it, I have become an even bigger advocate of LinkedIn – a social network that I consider covers my “professional side” – and feel that it doesn’t get as much recognition as it should in the social media world. My friend and I recently got into a brief debate about the effectiveness of LinkedIn, where I stated my strong views about this site being a great source for job hunting, and his response was: “LinkedIn? That’s not a fun website!” I disagreed immediately, for expanding my professional network is genuinely fun for me! This network has made such an impact on my professional career that I felt the need to share how much I value my LinkedIn profile.

Earlier this year, I moved to Israel after growing up in the US and obtaining my Bachelor’s degree. Arriving in a new city, new country, leaving all my former connections behind, I was a bit worried about ways of connecting with potential employers for employment opportunities and establishing myself again. I signed up with a few employment agencies and job hunting websites, and even got a few callbacks and interview requests to the hundreds of resumes I sent out. But I must say, the biggest influence on my professional network and what has helped me the most with my job search prior to getting an offer was my dedicated involvement with LinkedIn.

LinkedIn has helped me connect and reconnect with so many people on so many levels. From former employers and clients to colleagues and classmates from college, my professional social network began to grow exponentially and my job search soon became fun and productive. Rather than simply sending employers standard emails with a simple cover letter, my resume and sign my name with my phone number (as if they would really call me, right?) I started including a link to my LinkedIn profile as part of my email signature. The added benefit of adding a link to your profile “enables people to see all your credentials, which would be awkward if not downright strange, as an attachment,” according to Guy Kawasaki‘s blog post in Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn.

But before sending my resume to any employer that somewhat appealed to me, I did the proper research about the company on LinkedIn to see if they had a presence. By checking on the company and by screening through their list of employees and who may possibly be holding a position I am applying for, I could get the inside scoop on the company, my potential future colleagues and managers and my growth potential within the company. According to Guy, the LinkedIn network consists of “more than 8.5 million experienced professionals from around the world representing 130 industries.” How cool is that?! Still, it was surprising to me as to how many companies I searched for that did not have a company profile on LinkedIn, and this factor sometimes made it easier for me to pass judgment on the credibility of the company and of their growth potential in their industry.

When it comes to connections – the more the merrier, as the more connections you have the more opportunities you are exposed to. Your contacts have the potential to help you grow your career, find a job opportunity, be a source for referrals and reference checks and expand your professional network. According to Guy’s blog post, “people with more than twenty connections are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than five.” The format to adding connections on LinkedIn (when compared to Facebook, for example) is a little more reserved, as it asks you to state where you may know this potential connection from. I found that by joining relevant groups or networks within the career field I was interested in, I could participate in forums and offer my opinions about topics within the industry, and this actually made it easier for me to connect to others within that group. Joining groups within the industry I was interested in pursuing – such Marketing & PR Innovators - opened many doors for me in terms of making new connections and expanding my knowledge about the industry.

Another way that I was able to connect to someone that I didn’t know personally was by turning to a current connection of mine to “introduce” me to their connection. This was a great way for me to express my interest in the connection’s industry, let them know I am interested in learning more about their company, inquire about potential job openings that I might be suited for – all while a formal introduction was sent through my trusted connection. I was amazed as to how many people accepted the introduction and were so helpful with my job search.

As I write this post and sigh with relief that my job search is over and am happily employed at Blonde 2.0, I know that I am where I am today because of the help of my professional network and can thank LinkedIn for providing me with that outlet. Since resumes can be long and tedious to read at times – and never simple to fit all of your accomplishments on one page – as employers suggest, having a LinkedIn profile is a direct and effective way to show people who you are professionally without confining yourself to a conventional resume. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn.

Dorine Sinigaglia is the Account & Content Manager for Blonde 2.0

Dorine is a dedicated individual with experience in account management, sales and business development for large corporations. She gets to know all the ins and outs of each account she handles and gets up close and personal with everyone she works with.

MyHeritage is a social network and software for genealogists. Launched in 2005, MyHeritage has since accumulated 33 million users worldwide. The company helps people build family trees, share them with their relatives and stay in touch with their loved ones. They are the most popular free family tree website according to ProGeneologists.com. Family Tree Builder, their geneology software program, is the most popular free geneology application.

MyHeritage started only as a free software program. With Web 2.0 taking a more dominant role, the company understood that people wanted to share their family tree and therefore it evolved into more of a network where people could collaboratively build and share their family trees, photos, receive birthday notifications, plan family events, or even send gifts to their loved ones.

The site has unique free genealogy tools such as Smart Matches which compare any person in your tree with the whole database and show the user other people researching the same ancestors. This can help researchers discover long-lost branches of their family, many generations apart. Some of those stories can be found on their blog. Generations of families have reunited across continents, languages, and cultures.

The most important genealogy product on MyHeritage is a simple piece of software called Family Tree Builder, which is really easy to use even for those not very experienced in the genealogy world. They also offer a more advanced Premium version for those who are really into genealogy. This week, they have just launched the latest version of Family Tree Builder (currently available for Windows-only).

Family Tree Builder is the most popular free geneology software. With more than 5 million downloads so far, Family Tree Builder is the world’s most popular free genealogy software, allowing seasoned pros and beginners alike to build family trees, research their family history, add photos and videos, and obtain unique Smart Matches™ with other family trees worldwide.

With today’s release, their software just got even more user-friendly. Some of the new features of Family Tree Builder include:

• Maps - Family Tree Builder 4.0 features a new module that shows you all of the places mentioned on your tree. Even more important, perhaps, given changing geographical borders and political boundaries, is a feature that suggests how to improve your data and fix spelling and consistency mistakes in place names. For example, a family tree contributed by many members of an extended family might refer to Dumbrowa, Dabrowa,  and Dabrowa Bialystocka, and someone might think that these are all different locations when they refer to the same Polish town, but not the similiar-sounding Dabrowa Gornicka. The maps module is free for all users, with size limitations lifted for Premium and Premium Plus members.
• Photo Albums – Photos and photo sharing are an integral part of MyHeritage. Family Tree Builder lets geneologists organize their photos into albums with simple drag and drop. When you publish your tree to MyHeritage’s website, your photo albums remain intact.
• Slideshow & Screen Saver – Family Tree Builder can display your pictures as a slideshow or screen saver that displays your family photos when your computer is idle. It also integrates with MyHeritage’s tagging and facial recognition features.
• Family Toolbar – An integrated toolbar integrated with MyHeritage.com, the toolbar provides the world’s first Family Chat that lets you chat with family members whenever they are online. It also lets you visit your family site in a single click, get birthday reminders and perform powerful genealogy searches.
• Recovery – When you restore a family tree that was published online, your photos will be recovered.
• Family Tree Builder also includes a new tool that finds family members that are probably deceased but not mentioned as such in your tree.
• Multilanguage support – Family Tree Builder supports over 34 languages, both making it useful for a worldwide audience and also more useful than competing programs as many people’s families span multiple continents and languages over the generations.

“In recent years we’ve seen a growing number of people who want to learn more about their ancestors and where they came from,” said Gilad Japhet, Founder and CEO of MyHeritage.com. “With the new map module, people can get an appealing visual representation of their family’s life journeys. They can also map the addresses of family members, quickly find all events and photos associated with a particular place and even standardize place names using smart suggestions. This provides a fascinating new perspective for millions of people interested in their family history.”

The new family toolbar provides direct access to family sites on MyHeritage.com, adds powerful genealogy search and features Family Chat – a text, audio and video chat system built specifically for family use. Members also receive useful birthday reminders on the family toolbar without leaving the Web page they are on.

Family Tree Builder’s family tree display is much easier to use than some of the competing commercial software. For example, you can display at least seven generations on a single screen, as well as marital status and other personal information, without the page feeling cramped. In addition, it’s far less resource hogging than the competing Family Tree Maker.

It’s impossible to find free family tree builder software as powerful and user-friendly as Family Tree Builder. In fact, the paid version has more interesting features and a nice simple UI, without the memory hog, of its leading competitors. Family Tree Builder is definately an incredibly useful tool to have in the amateur or professional geneologist’s toolbox.

I had the pleasure of speaking to Mario F. Ruckh, Director of Marketing at MyHeritage, when I was in London last month. Here is MyHeritage in his own words:

If the mere thought of “big brother” watching you drives you mad, then you surely wouldn’t want to be a Wall Street Journalist right now. The Social Media rules for WSJ have just been revised into a much more strict affair. Here are a few that have drawn cause for discussion:

1) Consult your editor before “connecting” to or “friending” any reporting contacts who may need to be treated as confidential sources. Openly “friending” sources is akin to publicly publishing your Rolodex.

2) Let our coverage speak for itself, and don’t detail how an article was reported, written or edited.

3) Don’t discuss articles that haven’t been published, meetings you’ve attended or plan to attend with staff or sources, or interviews that you’ve conducted.

4) Business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter. Common sense should prevail, but if you are in doubt about the appropriateness of a Tweet or posting, discuss it with your editor before sending.

Contracted Dow Jones site writer, Peter Kafka, responded to these rules by basically stating that he didn’t “have a problem with the bulk of this stuff… big organizations like to spell this stuff out, for both management and legal reasons. Nature of the beast.” Glad you don’t mind Peter!

Image Credit: lis_glass