Community Pages are a new type of Facebook Page dedicated to a topic or experience that is owned collectively by the community connected to it. Just like official Pages for businesses, organizations and public figures, Community Pages let you connect with others who share similar interests and experiences.

Community pages are currently in beta, but the goal here is to collect information and “shared knowledge” of an interest or topic. I would compare it to a Twitter List/Rss Feed. Unlike the Fan Page, users can simply “Like” a community page and not need to become a Fan like the Fan Pages. On Facebook’ers profile page will now list “connections”, more than just the name of the interests and like but a connection to Pages that users are interested in.

Let’s cut to the Chase, here’s what you need to know:
1. Just like your friend recommendations, you’ll see a box that recommends Pages based on your information from your profile. You have the option of selecting “Link All to My Profile” or select specific pages you would like to add to your profile by selecting “Choose Pages Individually.” Once your selections are made, the corresponding text, i.e. Work, Education, Sorority, City, will now be replaced with a link to the corresponding page.
2. Just “Like” a Page, the “Become a Fan” option for Pages has been replaced with “Like” button. You can ”Unlike” any Page at any time or remove underneath the Page Photo.
3. You can file Pages by importance by a drag and drop function. This will prioritize and feature specified connections and control what Friends see when they visit your profile. There is also an expanded view. Privacy settings still come into play, you can reveal your connections or Pages to others as you see fit. This hasn’t changed. Now there is an option called “Friends, Tags and Connections.”

Kudos to Facebook for this, if someone really wants to see the things that matter to me, now friends have an interactive guide to all things Michelle Likes.

NOTE: You can now hide your friend list on your profile from your friends.

With Vudu struggling in the past and Wal-Mart needing to get into the digital movie market, due to a rise in this on-demand style of video streaming cutting into the market for DVD media. Wal-Mart remains one of the largest sellers of DVDs in the world, and this purchase is just what Wal-Mart needs to jump into the world of internet streaming and digital media.

The official press release on Walmart’s website stated this:

VUDU has licensing agreements with almost every major movie studio and dozens of independent and international distributors to offer approximately 16,000 movies, including the largest 1080p library of video on-demand movies available anywhere. Via their broadband Internet connection, users have the ability to rent or buy titles and begin viewing them instantly. “Combining Vudu’s unique digital technology and service with Wal-Mart’s retail expertise and scale will provide customers with unprecedented access to home-entertainment options as they migrate to a digital environment,” Wal-Mart Vice Chairman Eduardo Castro-Wright said.

This will be Wal-Mart’s second attempt in the digital video market. In 2007, Wal-Mart partnered with Hewlett-Packard for movie downloading service/web store, like a paid version of Hulu. After just a shot 10 months, it shut down.

I’m still waiting for the dislike button, but overall I think this a pretty neat function and starting point. I will be following this to see the evolution of this function.
Do you think Facebook got it right?

The new features will be rolling out globally in English shortly. Google is offering users a chance to try out the new features on Google Trends, just select a term from “Hot Topic” or search a subject under “More Hot Topics”.
Users will see results similar to below: with news results, search results, and real time stream from social sites and blog posts for the freshest, most up-to-date information.

What Does this mean for Businesses?

Google Real time Search will certainly make it much more easier and efficient for its’ users. In the past years, companies have spent quite a bit on optimizing their Web sites for search. With a great SEO firm or SEO department, businesses have been successful at finding themselves on the front page of Google, in the top 10 listings hopefully. Businesses could re-focus their placement spending budget to paid search ads and spend attention on their presence on Social Media Sites. Start monitoring Twitter regularly, this can be done easily through subscribing to an RSS feed for a search about your business on Twitter.

For the most part smaller sized businesses will not have to worry about this; the amount of social conversations about their company, product or service will not be significant enough to make a huge dent on the results. Unless there a crises or some type of major news or recall.

What are your thoughts?

Hmmm…Very Interesting. So eating a McDonald’s McGrand Tomato will make me look like that! Running over there now.

Why are the sandwiches coming from their rear? Is this a subliminal message about the Marketing Concept behind this commercial? Share your thoughts..