He posted this one about becoming an authority by building quality content and sharing properly:

“You being an authority means you’re an expert. You rank better,” says Forrester. “You get more traffic.That just leads to better business success for you, which is what you want.”

“The first thing is, you need to focus on fundamentals here,” he says. “What we’re really talking about is the quality you have – the quality of content you build and the quality of sharing you do socially. Those are really two critically important points.”

He gives an example of “how to build quality content” using eBay.

“Let me give you two scenarios,” he continues. “One: you’re going to sell a cordless drill on eBay, and you’re just going to take the standard information, images and such. Now, the second example, we’re going to sell the same product – the same cordless drill – but we’re actually going to take videos of that cordless drill in use. We’re going to show that cordless drill in its packaging, in its wrapper, in every way possible. We are going to amplify it. Lots of extra pictures. We’re going to do this all on our own. We’re going to write up descriptions. We’re going to put all of that together.”

“It’s pretty clear to see here by these descriptions that we’re going to have a standard view of an item for sale, and a really deep, rich, immersive view of an item for sale,” says Forrester.

The second version, he says, is the “quality”.

“That is what people are looking for to answer their questions,” he continues. “So when that comes to you content, you have to think of it in terms of, ‘Have I answered all of the questions this searcher has? Have I done it to a depth that satisfies them?’ If you can do that, you need to move on to the next step, which is sharing properly.”

“You get out there, and you’re sharing things on Facebook, or you’re putting it on Twitter. Any of the social media spaces that you like and you frequent, you’re putting this stuff out there.”

He says that before you submit this stuff, you have to ask yourself: Will my tweet or my post bring quality to my followers or my friends?

“That is a critical step,” he emphasizes. “They want you to bring them quality. They need you to bring them quality. You need to bring them quality. If you don’t bring them quality, they’re going to stop following you. If you bring them good quality links either to your content or to related content, they will continually engage with you. They will share you. They will like you. They will amplify that for you. That amplification – that signals that you’re becoming an authority socially.”

“Pull all of that together,” he says. “Now you’re starting to see things as the search engine sees it.

More on Forrester’s thoughts about search and social from a presentation he gave at BlogWorld in November can be found here.

The videos have been slowly coming in, but I’m sure there will be more later on tonight. Keep checking back throughout the game as we’ll be updating with the latest and greatest prank videos.

We will update this story at the end with our top 10 videos. Check back often!

“Sometimes, when a person loves their Gmail very very much, the two get together and an ad is born,” The Gmail Man says.

As the story goes, this thinly veiled attack was actually a product of Microsoft. The video leak came from the Microsoft Global Exchange sales conference, which occurred in July. It was apparently shown there as a sort of “rally the troops” exercise – everyone sitting around, having a laugh at the expense of the competition type thing.

But now, Microsoft has released the video officially on their YouTube channel and they are promoting it via Twitter and Facebook.

Here’s the video, which appears to be unchanged from the leaked version. The point of it still seems to be advertising for Office 365.

As I mentioned before, this video isn’t new – but Microsoft’s official promotion of it is. And of course, the timing couldn’t be more poignant.

Google’s new privacy policy has gotten some people up in arms. Basically, Google is combining dozens of privacy policies into one, and saying that they will use information from all if their products to help personalize other products. Say you searched for “bears,” the next time you log into YouTube you might have a suggestion to watch some bear videos.

Whether it’s truly a big deal or not, Microsoft has jumped on the opportunity to slam Google. On Wednesday, they took out full page ads in major newspapers that said Google doesn’t put people first. The ads detailed Google’s privacy policy changes and suggested users switch to Microsoft alternatives like Hotmail and Bing.

Google quickly hit back, doing a little bit of mythbusting on their public policy blog. Here’s a relevant snippet from that rebuttal that pertains to Gmail man:

Myth: Google reads your email. [Microsoft]
Fact: No one reads your email but you. Like most major email providers, our computers scan messages to get rid of spam and malware, as well as show ads that are relevant to you.

Google goes on to talk about Microsoft’s own privacy policy:

We don’t make judgments about other people’s policies or controls. But our industry-leading Privacy Dashboard, Ads Preferences Manager and data liberation efforts enable you to understand and control the information we collect and how we use it—and we’ve simplified our privacy policy to make it easier to understand. Microsoft has no data liberation effort or Dashboard-like hub for users. Their privacy policy states that “information collected through one Microsoft service may be combined with information obtained through other Microsoft services

Wherever you stand on all of this privacy battle business, you have to admit that Microsoft’s Gmail Man ad is pretty funny.

Speaking of Gmail, one comedy group tackled the same kind of concerns with GMale, Google’s perfect boyfriend:

It’s only a 10-second clip, but it surely packs a punch. You’ve got the Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man and even Scarlett Johansson’s beautiful self – and some major destruction. Check it out below:

The Avengers is definitely one of the most buzzed-about movies of the upcoming blockbuster season. When the initial Avenger’s trailer released, it broke the iTunes record for most downloaded trailer of all time.

The Avengers will release in 3D and IMAX on May 4th. If you choose to watch it in three dimensions, you’ll be able to watch it in style (with a slight fee). Fans choosing to pay an extra 5 bucks will be albe to don their very own custom 3D glasses modeled specifically for four different heroes: Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and Captain America.

If you somehow missed the original trailer, you can watch it below:

Are you excited? Let us know in the comments. And be sure to check out some of the other leaked Super Bowl spots below:

Lexus Releases Its First-Ever Super Bowl Ad Early

Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno and The Soup Nazi

Audi Super Bowl Ad Kills Some Vampires

Volkswagen’s Super Bowl Ad: Dogs Bark The Imperial March, Look To Out-Viral Little Vader

Ferris Bueller Honda Ad Is Matthew Broderick’s Day Off

In 2011, Colbert created the Colbert Super PAC to raise money from fans, but more importantly as a way to poke fun at issues like Citizens United, corporate money in elections, and shadow organizations that pump out attack ads for political candidates. Colbert Super PAC paid for ads for a “Rick Parry” during the Iowa Caucus and most recently transferred ownership into the hand of Jon Stewart, so that Colbert could make a run during the South Carolina GOP primary.

During that time, the Super PAC changed names to the “Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC.”

But after it was over, Jon Stewart didn’t want to give back control of the PAC. It’s been a running gag on the two Comedy Central shows for the past couple of weeks. But last night, Colbert finally got it back. Check it out:

All of this is a bit (and funny as hell), but we shouldn’t forget that the Colbert Super PAC is real and it actually raised a bunch of money. But how much money?

That was disclosed on Tuesday, as the Super PAC officially filed a report with the Federal Elections Committee disclosing their financials. According to Colbert, this move shows his “deep commitment to transparency” by “disclosing [the information] several hours before being legally required to.”

The big number? $1,023,121.24.

“Colbert Super PAC has brought in a staggering $1,023,121.24, which my accountant explains to me that is a number far above ‘one,’ ‘two,’ ‘five,’ or even ‘many’” said Stephen Colbert, President and Returning Champion of Colbert Super PAC. “We raised it on my show and used it to materially influence the elections – in full accordance with the law. It’s the way our founding fathers would have wanted it, if they had founded corporations instead of just a country.”

Here’s the text from the actual filing, as it proves that even in legal documents Colbert retains his edge:

The FEC filing also disclosed the names of everyone who donated over $200 to the Super PAC. As Reuters found, one notable name was California’s Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, who contributed $500.

YouTube user BennyTheJukebox has come up with a 90s Megamix of all your favorite dance pop tracks from one of the best decades to be alive.

And he plays them all on the Melodica. Here’s a brief sampling of what you’ll hear in the mix:

Gonna Make You Sweat (C&C Music Factory)
What Is Love (Haddaway)
Blue (Eiffel 65)
Better Off Alone (Alice DeeJay)
Can’t Touch This (MC Hammer)
Coco Jumbo (Mr. President)
Break My Stride (Unique 2)
Moving On Up (M People)
Another Night (MC Sar and The Real McCoy)
Mr Vain (Culture Beat)
Jellyhead (Crush)
Baby Got Back (Sir Mix-A-Lot)
We Like To Party (The Vengaboys)

Enjoy:

How many of the songs do you recognize? Let us know in the comments.

[Via Reddit]

Jimmy Kimmel imagines a Facebook Police unit that makes sure you respond to that girl that poked you awhile ago, accept your mother’s friend request, and change your profile picture to something more appropriate.

While discussing the new Facebook Timeline rollout, where every user will be required to update to the new profile, Kimmel wondered how Facebook would enforce such a mandate. With brute force, that’s how:

As you probably know, Kimmel is behind an annual event known as “National Unfriend Day.” On November 17th, 2011, Facebook users were asked to clean out their friends list by dumping everyone who simply failed to matter anymore. There was even a point system designed to let users know if they should unfriend someone. One of the top offenses, using the phrase “amazeballs,” was worth 40 points.

Maybe next year, the Facebook Police will make sure more people participate in NUD.

Facebook moved into its new home at Menlo Park last month. The campus consists of 10 buildings. There are 2,000 employees in the East Campus, with a vacant lot next door for “further developments”. The company says it is hoping to accommodate a lot more in the years to come.

Speaking of Facebook walls, the company announced today that it will begin pushing the new Timeline feature to all users over the next few weeks. It’s been available for a while, but now users will no longer have a choice if they don’t like it.

First, Congressional support for the legislation took a nosedive following the protests. And it doesn’t appear that Wednesday’s protests simply happened at the right time – an emphasis on a foregone conclusion. You can actually see a seismic shift in support and opposition to the two bills, and the clear line of demarcation was Wednesday’s blackouts.

Then, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid delayed action on PIPA “in light of recent events.” On the same day, SOPA author Lamar Smith released a statement saying that he would not move on SOPA until there is “wider agreement on a solution.”

Of course, the DOJ’s takedown of MegaUpload the very following day took a little steam out of the successes of the protest. And there is plenty of other harmful legislation out there that threatens internet freedom and privacy. But there is no denying that for one day, the internet community did affect policy.

And one of the major ways that they did that was through social media – especially Twitter. #SOPA #PIPA and #Blackout hashtags reigned supreme through the whole day. People were buzzing about the protests. And Vimeo user Andrei Taraschuk has created a couple of cool visualizations showing how American Twitter users discussed SOPA on that day.

Here’s a video of Tweets from 8am to 8pm on January 18th containing the #PIPA, #SOPA, or #Blackout hashtags. Tweets are displayed in one-minute interval:

And here’s a video of tweets specifically about the Wikipedia blackout. As you might recall, Twitter kind of had a collective freakout about the perceived inaccessibility of the site:

Twitter announced that there were over 2.4 million SOPA-related tweets floating around the Twitterverse from 12am to 4pm on the 18th.

Colbert takes the stance that anything you need on the internet, he can provide. So what if reddit is blacked out? A certain photoshopped picture featuring a few of reddit’s favorite things will surely suffice.

Check out his take on the legislation below:

John Stewart, on the other hand, readily admits that he needs to do a little homework on SOPA and PIPA. He demonstrates this by looking up SOPA on Wikipedia only to find…well, you probably see where this is going:

Until recently, Colbert and Stewart had been less vocal about the topic than many on the internet desired. A top post on reddit about a week ago was from a redditor who said they attended a taping of The Daily Show and asked Jon Stewart to look into SOPA. On that night’s episode, he briefly mentioned the legislation at the beginning of the broadcast.

Driven by yesterday’s massive web protest, both Colbert and Stewart were basically compelled to devote large chunks of their shows to SOPA.

How do you think they did? Let us know in the comments.