Almost in response to that, Google announced today it would unify all of its privacy polices for all of its various properties – Gmail, Google Plus, YouTube, etc. – with one, simplified privacy policy.

What was downplayed in all of this, however, was Google’s new stance towards user data: Google will now collect information on users search, what they send people via Gmail, what they post and +1 in Google Plus, what they watch on YouTube… essentially, they are going to be mining all data on a user no matter where they are in the Google universe. This will be particularly unsavory for people with Android phones, the mobile operating system created by Google. Those users will not only be giving Google their search data and e-mails – even their phsical location could be up for grabs, tracked through the device’s GPS.

Given how privacy is has grown from an enormous concern a few years ago to a magnificently huge concern today, Google’s new policy is concerning. Facebook, arguably Google’s biggest competitor, is itself facing huge problems because of its privacy policy.

The problem with their new policy, unfortunately, is that users cannot “opt out” of this. If you want to play on Google, you have to play by Google’s rules – like it or not.

It’s fascinating that Facebook got in trouble for its privacy policy because it pulled everyone into it, and then gave them the opportunity to opt-out. As such, most people didn’t know they were having their information combed through by Facebook. Their recent deal with the Government requires they make any of these policies “opt-in” – you not only have the choice of whether or not to let them study your information, you have to volunteer for it.

I can’t imagine Google won’t run into serious legal trouble declaring their intention to read people’s e-mails, save their search histories and build secret profiles on allow those users a way out.

Perhaps that’s not entirely fair. Google has given one option, albeit a cynical one: If you do not like the new policy, you can have Google scrub your information from their database through their Data Liberation Front team, and stop using Google services altogether. In short, it’s their ball, and if you won’t play the way they want you to, you can go home.

Time will only tell how successful they are with this. As a huge fan of Google since I got my first Gmail address, I would be devastated if they devolved into yet another enormous site I had to distrust. It is entirely possible this new application of user data will improve their sites enormously, and help Google users get better information, and better services. What scares me is our inability to say, “no thank you” if we don’t want to, and the risk of having that data – with all of the details of our personal lives – optioned or sold to the highest bidder.

Principle number 6 of Google’s 10 Core Principles is, “You can make money without doing evil.” I sincerely hope they remember this.

Google's petition to stop SOPA

You may have noticed a number of websites across the Internet are down today – most notably the English version of Wikipedia, social sharing site Reddit, the blog Boing Boing, and Craigslist.org. (Wikipedia is still accessible today if you are using a mobile device, however.)

Thousands of webmasters with smaller pages and blogs have similarly shut down their sites for the day, in an effort to show the world what the Internet might be like if SOPA and PIPA were to pass.

Isagenix is not taking part in this blackout. Your site and services will not be interrupted.

The reason is SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act). Thankfully, two pages on Wikipedia are not blocked out – the pages on SOPA and PIPA themselves. As such, I can refer you to this to learn more about this legislation to form your own opinion.

While Google is still up and running, they are slowing down their search spiders – automated programs that scan the Internet for their search listings – so a site blacking out in protest does not hurt its search rankings.

The blackout is scheduled to last the rest of the day, and then these sites will be back up and running.

For months I’ve been preaching the word of Google Plus, and a lot of you have come to the search giant’s social network to see what was up. Given how new this site was, and how enormous Facebook already is, a lot of people wondered, “why should I care?”

So now Google has give people a great reason to care: When you go searching for information, you can now alter your results to reflect what your social circle is talking about. Traditional Google results – which are still available – only show what their algorithm says is the best result, and only looking at websites.

Now user data from their social network will feed results as well. This means if you have something you want to promote – which we all do – posting this to Google Plus, and having a social circle capable of seeing it, just became that much more important.

Since this was only announced today, it isn’t available to everyone just yet. Roll-outs of new Google products typically take a day or two, depending on where you are and the order in which Google updates their servers. So if you Google something in the next few days and see this symbol…

…you can see what the fuss is all about.

Going forward, this is going to mean some interesting changes in how you approach search marketing AND social media. For example, if one person has a website that has done well in search for some time, but never bothered to create a social following, that person could get trumped by their competitor who has been a social butterfly on Google Plus for the last year. It won’t just be because someone posted all about their business on G+ either – this update will incorporate everything other people have posted about that business as well.

Or not. The important thing to remember with all of this is that Google is still competing with Facebook. Integrating themselves into their other product – the greatest information indexing tool ever known to man, also known as the Google search engine – is their attempt to increase the visibility and importance of their own social network. It is entirely possible this just won’t work, and Facebook will continue to be the place you have to be.

However, even if only a few people jump at this opportunity to use Google Plus to increase their visibility in Google Search, those people will now be given a massive leg up on their competition.

Associate Retail Website Tutorial Awesomeness

So you might have just heard the announcement from stage at NYKO, or maybe you were one of the super-awesome Associates who attended the NYKO IsaGeeks breakout sessions, but either way, you’re in the know about the righteous new improvements that have been made to your Associate Retail Website.

This automatically makes you really, really cool.

However, if you want to be bad-and-nationwide cool, you could also take a peep at the tutorial we’ve put together for your new Retail Website that shows you all the neato things you can do with it.  Just click on this link, or click on the image above, and you’ll be off and running!

Step 2: Go to our article on how to create a Facebook Fan Page and follow the steps provided

Step 3: Now go to our other article on how to set up a Facebook Storefront and follow those steps.

If you are setting up a storefront for the first time, you will get the new look – but if you’ve already set up your storefront, you will want to go through these steps again to get the new look.

And with that, you’re open for business!

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about, going to Traffic Sources > Keywords will show you the keywords people use in searches to get to your site. When you see these, you know how people are finding you, whether your SEO work is paying off, and even which specific keywords do better at becoming customers.

(Not Provided) now means they got to your site from search, somehow, but Google isn’t going to tell you more than that. And not knowing which keywords are getting you customers, you’re going to be doing a lot more guessing as to how to improve your site for search.

The reason is Google’s shift to protecting user privacy. With all of the Google users now signed in and using personalized search, Google felt those people’s data was insecure. So now anyone who is signed into Google and searching will have all of their information will have that information protected. That’s why you aren’t seeing what they popped into their Google search bar in your analytics anymore, and are seeing (Not Provided) instead.

So what can you do? Not much. Google is going to do what Google is going to do. You can still see keywords in your analytics reports, but those will be for people who either aren’t signed into Google, or aren’t using Google for searches. Signed in searches on Google are still a minority for the time being. You should still be able to see what keywords are important in analytics for the time being. You’ll just need to ignore these results Google no longer feels like sharing with you.

You can remove them from your embedded videos. If you want to learn how to do this, go to our original post, “Removing “Recommendations” from Embedded YouTube Videos.”

Getting back to that “technically,” there is a work around that allows you to point viewers to watch a video via our channel without the pesky suggested videos popping up. We can’t guarantee that it will work in the future, but it works for now:

1.) Grab the video’s link and copy everything after the youtu.be/ (in this case: CEtt_ivI7Es)

2.) Here’s the magical link that you will need to keep on hand: http://www.youtube.com/user/Isagenix#p/c/0/

3.) Paste that part of the youtu.be link (the CEtt_ivI7Es part) right after the 0/ and you’re done!

It should look like this:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Isagenix#p/c/0/CEtt_ivI7Es

Again, we don’t know how long this trick will work but it’s a worth a shot!

IsaGeeks Subscription Box on Friendfeed

We often tell people if you need content for a blog post, one of the easiest things you can do is read someone else’s blog, and write your own opinion of it.

Which leads to the next question: “How can I get content from you for my blog?”

There are a few ways you can get blog content from us, and fortunately, it’s all automated. A few of you already know this – if you’re reading this now, but you aren’t at isageeks.com, you’re likely reading this via our RSS feed.

What is an RSS Feed?

RSS stands for “Resource Site Summary.” You’ll hear a lot of people call it, “Really Simple Syndication,” something that was created for people who couldn’t handle something as technical sounding as, “Resource Site Summary.”

Either one makes you sound smart, depending on what kind of party you’re at.

The RSS feed is, essentially, the content of any published material boiled down to its simplest parts. There is no page design, no colors, no pictures – just text and links. You can do a lot with this information once it’s boiled down like that. If you’ve read our previous posts on Feedburner, you may know we already use this to send out e-mails of our posts. If you want to get these, you simply add your e-mail address to the, “Isageeks By Email” box on the right.

If the first page that loads on your browser is your Google or Yahoo! page, you may want our stories showing up there first. That way you can read our stories when you want to, and it’s one less e-mail for you to deal with in your inbox.

To do this, look for, “Isageeks RSS Feed” to the right, and click on, “Click to Subscribe.”

You should get a page with a big picture of the IsaGeeks robot, and some sharing options just beneath it. If you click on the Google selection, you can have blog posts turn up either on your Google Homepage, or in Google Reader. Google Reader is, like the name suggests, Google’s feed reader program. It’s a great place to bring all of the different bits of news you like reading together in one place.

If you select the Google Homepage, you can see new blog stories from us at igoogle.com each time you go there and are logged in. This is a popular way to go, as so many people use igoogle.com as their browser’s home page.

If you click on the MyYahoo! option, you can simply add a module to your Yahoo! front page, that will also update itself with new stories each time we update the blog.

There are a few other options available as well. They aren’t used quite as much anymore, though. Feedburner is a few years old, and news reading sites like “NetVibes” and “PageFlakes” just aren’t that popular anymore.

Be that as it may, this is the easiest way to get new IsaGeeks content if you’re looking for it.

“I’m on Google Plus – so now what?”

I get this question a lot, mostly because I’m always talking up how great G+ is. So I’m happy to answer that question here.

First, while Google Plus is different from Facebook in a lot of ways, it’s also different in one important way: The way people follow each other. If I “Friend” you on Facebook, we aren’t friends until you return the favor. However, on Google Plus, I can “Circle” anyone I want.

Now, the rest of this post is going to dive deep into Google’s Circles, so you may want to familiarize yourself with what they are first:

If you need a more in-depth tutorial on how to use Circles, a quick search on YouTube will get you a lot of results to learn more from.

Now, if anyone I Circle posts something publicly, I can read that post – whether they Circle me back or not.

This may seem like a semantic difference, but think about it: In order to connect with someone who’s very popular on Facebook, you need to get that person to accept you as a Friend. If they’re really popular, they probably won’t bother to unless you went to high school with them or something.

On Google Plus, you don’t need that someone to return the favor in order to see what they’re posting publicly. You can Circle these people, and leave comments on their posts – whether they bother to Circle you back or not.

“So how does this help me?”

Okay. So you’re an Isagenix Associate on Google Plus. You just signed up, and you’re not in anybody’s circles.

The first thing you do is start posting. Try to be consistent about it, posting something once a day. Like Twitter or Facebook, I strongly suggest you NOT post about Isagenix or your business every time. You should mix in posts about what’s going on with you, or a link to a news story you think is important, a YouTube video you thought was funny, pictures of your dog… whatever you think is interesting. This lets people know you’re a real person, with real likes and dislikes, and therefore probably someone worth connecting with.

The second thing you should do – and this is where all that Circling stuff comes in – is to start finding people who are already popular on Google Plus, adding them to a Circle, and commenting on their posts.

Let’s say you add Louis Grey to one of your Circles. Aside from being the Product Marketing Manager for Google Plus itself, Louis posts a LOT of interesting stories. As such, he also has a lot of people reading him. If you were to comment on his stories, people who read them afterwards would see that comment. If they liked everything else you were posting about and found you interesting, they might add you to their Circles.

That doesn’t mean you should just leave comments on Louis’ posts, mind you. Instead, create a Circle called, “Interesting People.” Then go looking for popular Google Plus posters, and add them to this Circle.

Every day, go into this Circle and see what these people are posting about. Leave a comment on each story you have something to say about. After a while, you’re going to start seeing notifications that people you’ve never heard of are adding you to their Circles as well. That means each time you post something, they’re likely reading it.

If you do this regularly, you will start gaining a following. That means people reading your posts – and if those posts include links to your own blog posts about your Isagenix business, that’s a whole new, free traffic center for you!

If you’re on Google Plus now and are looking for some interesting people to Circle, go to FindPeopleOnPlus.com – it’s an unofficial directory of Google Plus users. Do a search for some keywords that interest you, and see who comes up. You can then view their profiles, and add them to your circles right from their site.

Remember, no social networking site will do anything for you. In order to make Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, or whatever else comes out in the coming years, you’ll need to work at it to make it work for you. Fortunately, as I hope I’ve shown, Google Plus is VERY easy to get working on!