Its weird to think about how much the earth changes over the years. As little as one year can affect the earth and how it functions. Looks and shapes of the earth are never the same as they used to be, so imagine what the earth would look like in say 20 years!

Time Magazine and Google came together to bring us the Timelapse, a visual of many different places on the earth and how they change over time.

Take Las Vegas for example. The city has grown and grown over the past 30 years, and Timelapse shows the amount of growth and the sprawl of the city over that time frame. In 1992 the city had just under 300,000 people. Today that has just about double with slightly less than 600,000. That’s a lot of growth to happen in 20 years.

Timelapse also brings us the Amazon Rainforest, Dubai, and the Columbian Glaciers, as well as other places in the world.

Check out Timelapse at http://world.time.com/timelapse/ and let us know what you think in the comments below.

Google has extended its Analytics power further in the form of a YouTube Trends Map. The map is able to display currently trending videos by certain search criteria such as age, gender, and location. It will show today’s most popular videos according to your search criteria. Currently it is only available in United States, but Google tells us to stay tuned for updates in the near future.

Using the tool is pretty self explanatory as it seems to have only three main criteria: gender, age, and search type (video shares or views). It will then give you a further defined list of videos on the right hand side as well as within the map. When a video icon is clicked, the tool will give you a popup display of the video itself. Below the map area, YouTube further breaks down top video trends of all age groups and genders.

Overall the tool looks quite limited. As YouTube hints of further updates, hopefully it will be updated with even more powerful capabilities in the near future.

Social media has become the latest marketing battleground for the hearts, minds, and wallets of consumers. A business without a social media presence is considered to be behind the times. The response to this attitude has been a social media Gold Rush, with businesses scrambling to carve out a presence in the new media.

Many businesses set up social media profiles seeking to improve their brand reputation and recognition, only to damage those same properties by misusing or misunderstanding social media. Before a business starts posting or tweeting, it needs to remember a single, important truth: social media is not advertising.

Instead, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms offer an opportunity to build relationships with your customers. At its best, social media recreates the feeling of community and fellowship seen in the old “mom and pop” stores.

Sincerity, Personality and Social Media

An old joke claims if you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made. Many a business tries to fake sincerity on their social media profiles. Sometimes it works, but more often consumers recognize the ploy for what it is: an artificial voice and personality.

The best social media profiles give the business an authentic, genuine voice, almost as if the business was an individual. This requires a little imagination. If your business were a person, what would he or she be like? Would she be a happy-go-luck free spirit or a serious professional with an interest in social issues? An inbound marketing company will have a very different “personality” than a video game company.

Once you have a corporate personality, use it as a guiding light for your posts. Each post should reflect the larger personality. This doesn’t mean a light-hearted personality can’t get serious, or that a more professional voice can’t occasionally have some fun, but the overall tone should remain consistent.

Consistency and Change

While consistency is important, remember that people (and corporate personalities) are not static. They change and evolve over time. If you find readers respond better to a more serious tone, alter your corporate personality to match this preference.

Ideally, such changes occur organically, over a period of time. Occasionally, however, you may need to make a sudden change. A divorce lawyer who opts for a humorous, irreverent tone probably made a huge miscalculation, and would need to change voices quickly.

Helpful and Engaging

No matter which corporate personality you choose, your postings need to help consumers make decisions or offer interesting and useful information. Social media is all about developing and cultivating conversations with consumers. If your corporate voice discourages conversations, something needs to change.

Social media should provide a place where consumers feel comfortable asking questions, making suggestions and requesting assistance. By necessity, this also means allowing people to complain and occasionally start arguments. To facilitate this, your corporate voice should have more in common with customer service, with only occasional nods towards marketing.

Alicia Lawrence

There’s no way to quantify how powerful social media has become in our lives. If nothing else, it’s become a quick, convenient way to share information with your friends and family. But there’s a downside to social media; you can share too much information, or as we all call it, TMI.

Once you post something on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, it’s there for all eternity (don’t be fooled – deleting something doesn’t erase it). You don’t have to become a hermit to protect certain details of your life. Just remember that some information can get you in trouble or even put you in danger, including the following examples:

Your Evening Plans

In recent years, we’ve read stories about a home being burglarized or vandalized after the owner announced plans to attend a concert, leave town for the weekend, or go on a long vacation. If nothing else curbs your habit of sharing everything on social media, this might.

Remember, you’re never just sharing vacation plans with your closest friends and relatives. Depending on your privacy settings, you could be sharing it with friends, groups, or even the public. If the wrong person sees it, you could be at risk of a burglary or other violent crime. By all means, share your experiences – just keep your itinerary off your feed.

Financial or Health Issues

If you’re looking for reliable Social Security disability help, you might be tempted to ask your social networks to speed up the process. Avoid it. Openly discussing issues involving your finances and health could cause trouble in the long run.

Your profiles are wide open to everyone from potential suitors and employers to friends and attorneys. As a result, anything you say about that late loan payment, your ongoing battle with cancer or monthly bills can be used (or misused) to vet your employment potential, evaluate your loan application or even determine whether you’ll get called for a second date.

Social Behavior

It’s fun to share pics of your wild birthday party with your friends, especially if they were there with you. Everyone’s allowed to have a good time, but if your social media profile looks like you’re having too much fun, you may be conveying the wrong image.

Just ask today’s college kids. As soon as they graduate and start job hunting, their profiles are immediately scrubbed of anything showing keggers, beer pong, and other stupid drinking games. But adults don’t get off the hook, either. Even if you’re sober 99% of the time, too many stories and photos of you getting drunk or high can cost you friends, promotions or other opportunities.

In the rush to share information about our lives, we forget that some information can work against us. Before posting that photo or status update, ask yourself whether it’s something you really want people to know.

I got an unpleasant surprise this morning. I logged onto Google Reader, as I do every morning to catch up on my web comics – er, I mean the morning news. The first thing I read was a note from Google, informing me that the company was shutting down Google Reader as of July 1, 2013.

Google Reader, for those of you who don’t know, is an RSS reader. RSS, short for Really Simple Syndication, allows users to subscribe to multiple blogs, news sites and, yes, web comics. Updates to the sites are displayed on the reader, so users can access all information from a single source.

You may love RSS. You may hate it. Or, like most people, RSS readers may not even be on your radar. But there’s a reason everyone should pay heed to the death of Google Reader. Any free app could suffer the same fate.

No Business Model, No Income

The death of Google Reader is part of Google’s ongoing pogrom – I mean spring cleaning – that’s seen the company axe about 70 products since 2011. Google cited declining users as the main reason for pulling the plug on Google Reader.

Interesting rationale, but I’m not sure it holds water, considering Google Reader drives more traffic than Google+. Granted, videos of three-day old kittens on YouTube drive more traffic than Google+, but that’s beside the point. The point is, Google Reader had no business model, and never seemed to have had one.

I don’t pay to use Google Reader; it’s free. Nor are there ads or any other form of revenue generation associated with the software. But (and here’s where I put on my wild-eyed conspiracy voice), Google+ also allows you to follow sites and receive updates as they occur. The difference is Google+ also generates ad revenues. My favorite RSS reader was sacrificed so the misshapen abomination known as Google+ could feed and grow stronger!

Or maybe not. The user base was dropping. Perhaps Google decided, as so many have before, that RSS is a dying format.

For Whom the Bell Tolls…

If you’re using free apps online, spend a moment of silence in honor of Google Reader. You dodged a bullet. Google Reader’s death highlighted one of the dangers of cloud computing.

I don’t have the reader installed on my desktop; it’s a product of the cloud and internet marketing. Pennsylvania computer stores won’t have copies of it in their remaindered bins. I won’t be able to purchase a used copy on eBay. Come July 1^st, the Reader is gone.

Think on that. You’re probably using at least some free apps. Some of them will go the way of Google Reader. Any online app could be pulled at any time. Helpful though free apps may be, users might be better off using for-pay desktop programs for important data. At least you’d still be able to access the software after the company pulls it.

You sit down to write your blog, and it hits you: you have no idea what to write. Your readers are expecting greatness, and you can barely string two words together. What can you do break through blog writer’s block?

Keep an Idea Journal

When great blog post ideas strike, write them down. Use those ideas to spark blog posts when you’re out of fresh ideas.

Read Something

Sometimes, something you read will jog an idea. Find inspiration when you read modern poetry, a real estate law magazine or other blogs. Keep your idea journal nearby as you write, and record any post ideas, even if they’re just a word or thought.

Draft Posts During Lush Times

We’ve all experienced days when the ideas flow like hot lava. Write like crazy on those days and save the posts as drafts. When you can’t think of something fresh, post one of your drafts.

Turn on the News

Current events are a great place to find blog worthy events. Write an opinion piece, summarize a current trend or reference something in your niche that your readers will enjoy reading.

Cut Yourself a Break

You want every post to be a masterpiece, but that’s not reality. Give yourself permission to post less than stellar pieces. A photo or even a short blurb about what you’re reading that day provide fodder for your blog.

While you don’t have to feel pressure like you’re studying for a degree program, giving yourself a break doesn’t mean you post pieces with grammatical or spelling errors. Maintain your professionalism, but understand that a successful blog sometimes includes posts that aren’t Pulitzer material.

Stick to a Schedule

Discipline yourself to write at the same time every day. Your body and mind will adjust to the routine, especially if you write when you’re naturally motivated, alert and productive.

Get Out of the Office

A change in venue may be exactly what your creative juices need. Take a walk to the park, sit at a coffeehouse or write on the balcony.

Form Relationships With Guest Bloggers

Blogging is all about networking, and other bloggers will eagerly write guest posts for you in exchange for links and exposure to their site. Form relationships with a handful of bloggers, and invite them to submit posts once every month or so.

Walk Away

Don’t sit and stare at your computer’s blank screen for 15 minutes. Walk away from the computer and get a snack, do jumping jacks or clean the house. You could also work on a different project. That break might be exactly what you need for inspiration.

Blog writer’s block hits everyone eventually. When it affects you, have an arsenal of tools that help you break through it. Then get back to writing awesome blog posts. What are your favorite ways to combat writer’s block?