In case you haven’t heard, Facebook is allowing for the creation of vanity “usernames” that will allow you to customize your Facebook address.  This change is a permanent and non-transferable … so select wisely.

What ‘Usernames’ Applies To

Users will be able to register custom usernames for both profiles and Facebook pages.  In case you aren’t familiar with the two, profiles are for human beings while fan pages are used for businesses, brands, causes and more.  Groups and applications cannot be given a Facebook username.  You can register Saturday Morning (12:01 EST) at the Facebook username page.

How Profiles & Pages Work in the SERPs

Profiles

Yesterday, Digg announced the release of “Digg Ads” a new advertising platform that will hopefully pull their finances out of the red.  What is different about this form of advertising on Digg, is that it is the first time that they have mixed the content in with the ads.

Ads will look exactly like a normal submission with the exception that no submitter will be present and a small line will appear on the top and bottom of the article with the text  “sponsored” above.

A Brief History of Digg Ads

Digg has never really figured out how to really monetize advertisements on the site.  They have looked for help in figuring out what users wanted, and tested out different platforms.  Digg started up using Google as an ad provider with a mix of Federated Media placements.  Then about two years ago Digg moved away from Google AdSense and gave Microsoft a spin at providing ads.  This year Digg again tried mixing it up by dropping Microsoft to try slinging their own ads.  In addition to going it alone on the ad front, Digg hired away Federated Media’s Sales Chief about a week ago as their Chief revenue Officer.

In case you haven’t heard, yesterday Digg removed the controversial “shout” feature that allowed users to share stories with one another.  This feature was Digg’s only internal tool for communication that was put in place a little over a year and a half ago.

History

Shouts were supposed to even the playing field between ‘power users’ and the common Digger.  This feature allowed users to select a story that they enjoyed and send it directly to their friends on Digg.  Shouts did empower numerous Digg users and did help more stories gain awareness and become popular when otherwise they might not have.  However, one major problem occurred, the majority of users abused this, and used it as a spammy broadcast tool. This turned off many long-time users who turned off shouts, or simply left the site.

While there has been a rather large commotion (mostly negative) about the recent release of the DiggBar we have been watching and tracking its usage to find out how the community actually uses it.   Surprisingly, we have found many beneficial aspects to the bar, and discovered a handful of ways that you can use the DiggBar or a shortened URL( DiggURL)  help your success on Digg.

(If you haven’t seen the DiggBar yet, check the following video)

Who Sees The DiggBar

Many people will argue that framing a website is intrinsically evil.  If you are one of this mindset, I would like to say that Digg’s most recent changes have honestly attempted to make the frame visible only to those who choose to view it, though it still does frame a website.  So before we get into the benefits of the DiggBar, we can take a look at who will and will not see the DiggBar to begin with:

Guess what?  Social networking online is very similar to social networking offline (in the real world)!  Big surprise?  Believe it or not, for some, it really is a surprise. Whether you are looking to grow your network, influence, awareness and reach or advancing your professional and personal goals it’s important to recognize that being successful in social networking online and offline are very similar.  Most of us know the rules for networking in the real world, but it’s important to remember them for online, particularly if you are making your first moves into online social media and social networking.  The following are tips to become a decent social networker in either medium. Most tips apply in both scenarios.

Last week I gave a presentation at SES NY and included a list of 35 niche social media sites that we participate in regularly. Lots of people have asked me for this list so I decided to put it here. The following 35 sites are broken down into 8 different categories and each site has an active community and can help you get exposure. These sites aren’t going to send you 50,000 visitors but they will send you targeted traffic & links (if you’re content is good).

At 10e20, we like to keep on top of things happening in the Internet world and we’ve been keenly watching Tipd.com since its beta launch a few weeks ago.  Today, they officially launch Tip’d 1.0.  Tip’d is a hot new social media site for financing, investing and business topics.  Given the current financial state of the world, we think that Tip’d will quickly become your number one choice for learning about all things financial.

To help ensure that Tip’d always features the latest and the best financial news and content, they’ve been building relationships with publishers in the niche.  These connections have help them get engaging, interesting and factual content.

Based on feedback from their beta launch from community members, they’ve been working feverishly to make changes and improvements.  Here are just a few of the major ones:

There are many reasons the Digg Community may perceive you negatively, or worse yet, consider you a filthy social media spammer. If you take part in the majority of these activities you probably aren’t seen as a positive social media maven as you may have hoped. Instead your actions depict you as a whiney and needy nuisance.

You might be a Digg Spammer If:

1. Your only shot at glory is to slightly rip of a top digger’s icon so you might get a few extra diggs

2. Your icon is a busty woman, but you are an out of shape male

3. You have over 400 “friends”

4. You only shout with one of these sayings: “shouting for a friend,” “sharing for a friend,” or “for a friend”

R U a Digg n00b that gets pwned by 1337 Digg Commenters? Well RTFM so teh next time ur comment won’t be an EPIC FAIL!

On Digg, having something to say is only half the battle, knowing how to say it is the other half. This guides you to dissect the jargon, people and memes used in comments on a daily basis. Each section is broken down in detail to help you boost your Digg cred the next time that you leave a comment.

3G – Third Generation of mobile phone standards and technology

AMD – Advanced Micro Devices (mainly a CPU competitor to Intel)

API – Application Programming Interface

APOD – Astronomy Picture of the Day (link)

BS – Bullsh*t

CCTV – Closed-circuit television (UK public surveillance)

CCFL - Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamps (Modern light bulb that uses a fraction of the electricity of regular light bulb)

Yesterday I presented at SES Toronto along with Lee Odden and Dave Snyder on a panel called ‘Twitter: Ultimate Time Waster, or Great Tool?’ I figured that in order to show how Twitter actually works – it would be best to use Twitter to do it. Here’s the results of the experiment and an extended version of my presentation. Also if you’re on Twitter and would like to follow me – here’s my profile: http://twitter.com/chriswinfield

The Best Way to Learn about Twitter is to Have Twitter Do My Presentation

• Started at 4:45pm EST
• No pre-planning or promotion around it at all
• Final question was asked at 6:04pm EST
• Over 275 answers in less than 90 minutes