25 Most Liked Pages on Facebook

Facebook’s Page again topped our quarterly list of the top Pages by the number of Likes, as measured by our PageData tool. As with past lists, the majority of the names on this one remain unchanged even as all of them grew. Both Facebook and Zynga’s Texas Hold’em Poker reached over 50 million, with several others above 40 million Likes.

The number of Likes that Pages on our list had ranged from Facebook’s 54 million down to MTV’s 28.3 million.

See how other top brands are maximizing their returns on their Facebook campaigns in the Facebook Marketing Bible. See the list below:

1. Facebook – 54,031,990

2. Texas Hold’em Poker – 51,151,002

3. Eminem – 47,880,731

4. YouTube – 46,059,390

5. Rihanna – 45,905,971

6. Lady Gaga – 44,288,366

7. Michael Jackson – 41,557,728

8. Shakira – 41,109,665

9. Family Guy – 38,543,871

10. Justin Bieber – 36,690,985

11. Harry Potter – 35,671,699

12. Katy Perry – 35,636,341

13. Linkin Park – 35,393,553

14. The Simpsons – 35,382,429

15. Cristiano Ronaldo – 35,016,634

16. Coca-Cola – 34,714,743

17. South Park – 34,329,509

18. Lil Wayne – 31,878,344

19. Bob Marley – 31,737,524

20. AKON – 31,301,325

21. Disney – 28,914,893

22. Megan Fox – 28,851,053

23. Music – 28,774,416

24. Beyoncé – 28,585,631

25. MTV – 28,338,730

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Create an Infographic Resume with these Tools

This post originally appeared on the American Express OPEN Forum, where Mashable regularly contributes articles about leveraging social media and technology in small business.

 

As a freelancer or job seeker, it is important to have a resume that stands out among the rest — one of the more visually pleasing options on the market today is the infographic resume.

An infographic resume enables a job seeker to better visualize his or her career history, education and skills.

Unfortunately, not everyone is a graphic designer, and whipping up a professional-looking infographic resume can be a difficult task for the technically unskilled job seeker. For those of us not talented in design, it can also be costly to hire an experienced designer to toil over a career-centric infographic.

Luckily, a number of companies are picking up on this growing trend and building apps to enable the average job seeker to create a beautiful resume.

To spruce up your resume, check out these four tools for creating an infographic CV. If you’ve seen other tools on the market, let us know about them in the comments below.

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1. Vizualize.me

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Vizualize.me is a new app that turns a user’s LinkedIn profile information into a beautiful, web-based infographic.

After creating an account and connecting via LinkedIn, a user can edit his or her profile summary, work experience, education, links, skills, interests, languages, stats, recommendations and awards. And voila, a stunning infographic is created.

The company’s vision is to “be the future of resumes.” Lofty goal, but completely viable, given that its iteration of the resume is much more compelling than the simple, black-and-white paper version that currently rules the world.

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2. Re.vu

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Re.vu, a newer name on the market, is another app that enables a user to pull in and edit his or her LinkedIn data to produce a stylish web-based infographic.

The infographic layout focuses on the user’s name, title, biography, social links and career timeline — it also enables a user to add more graphics, including stats, skill evolution, proficiencies, quotes and interests over time.

Besides the career timeline that is fully generated via the LinkedIn connection, the other graphics can be a bit tedious to create, as all of the details must be entered manually.

In the end, though, a very attractive infographic resume emerges. This is, by far, the most visually pleasing option of all of the apps we reviewed.

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3. Kinzaa

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Based on a user’s imported LinkedIn data, Kinzaa creates a data-driven infographic resume that focuses on a user’s skills and job responsibilities throughout his or her work history.

The tool is still in beta, so it can be a bit wonky at times — but if you’re looking for a tool that helps outline exactly how you’ve divided your time in previous positions, this may be your tool of choice.

Unlike other tools, it also features a section outlining the user’s personality and work environment preferences. Details such as preferences on company size, job security, challenge level, culture, decision-making speed and more are outlined in the personality section, while the work environment section focuses on the user’s work-day length, team size, noise level, dress code and travel preferences.

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4. Brazen Careerist Facebook App

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Brazen Careerist, the career management resource for young professionals, launched a new Facebook application in September that generates an infographic resume from a user’s Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn information.

After a user authorizes the app to access his or her Facebook and LinkedIn data, the app creates an infographic resume with a unique URL — for example, my infographic resume is located at brazen.me/u/ericaswallow.

The infographic features a user’s honors, years of experience, recommendations, network reach, degree information, specialty keywords, career timeline, social links and LinkedIn profile image.

The app also creates a “Career Portfolio” section which features badges awarded based on a user’s Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn achievements. Upon signing up for the app, I earned eight badges, including “social media ninja,” “team player” and “CEO in training.” While badges are a nice addition, they aren’t compelling enough to keep me coming back to the app.

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Your Thoughts

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Have you used a web app to create an infographic resume? If so, which tool did you use and how was your experience? Let us know in the comments below.

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LED Lenses to make augmented vision Reality

Okay, this is just freaky. We know LED lights are versatile enough to be used for practically anything, but LED contact lenses? Really?! Yes, as it turns out, really. 

"University of Washington researchers have figured out how to implant semitransparent red and blue LED lights in contact lenses, for the purpose of receiving and displaying data in sharp visual images and video." This means wearers will literally be able to watch TV or view photos that are projected directly onto their eyeballs.

Once miniature green LEDs are developed (and they’re in the works, as of now), full color displays will be possible. Once that happens, the possibilities are endless. Think about everything your smart phone can do right now, and imagine the same being possible for your eyeball. This news is a little scary and a lot fascinating, if you ask me—at the very least, with LED contact lenses, your hands would be free to pet your robot or tinker with your hover board.

Lead researcher Babak Parvis comments “You won’t necessarily have to shift your focus to see the image generated by the contact lens,” it would just appear in front of you and your view of the real world will be completely unobstructed when the display is turned off.

Ah, the real world. With augmented reality becoming a reality, it feels like the real world is fast becoming a relic of the past.

Posted by Azziet Singh follow me on twitter

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Nobel Prize winners of 2011

On November 27, 1895, a year before he died, Alfred Bernhard Nobel signed his last will and testament at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris. Eight years before his death the Swedish chemist, inventor and engineer who held 355 patents and made his fortune in armaments and explosives (he invented dynamite and ballistite, and owned the gun-making firm Bofors) had an unexpected change of heart. In 1888, a French newspaper erroneously published Nobel’s obituary – it was actually his brother Ludvig who had died – in which it described the inventor as “the merchant of death.”

Concerned at how he might be remembered, Nobel attempted to right his wrongs: He bequeathed 94 percent of his fortune to establish the Nobel Prizes to recognize scientists and inventors whose achievements conferred “the greatest benefit on mankind” in the fields of Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature and Peace. The first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901. In 1968, the Sveriges Riksbank (the National Bank of Sweden) instituted a prize for Economic Sciences in Nobel’s memory.

Laureates receive a medal, a diploma and a sum of money that varies in relation to the Nobel Foundation’s income that year – in 2011 each prize was worth about $1.45 million. The awards are presented annually in Stockholm, Sweden (except for the Peace Prize, which is presented in Oslo, Norway).

Yemeni activist Tawakkul Karman, one of three recipients of
the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, at her tent in Change Square in
Sanaa, Yemen. Karman's Nobel Peace Prize draws attention 
to the role of women in the Arab Spring uprisings; they have
rebelled not only against dictators but against a traditional, 
conservative mindset that fears women as agents of change.
Women have participated in all the protests sweeping the 
Arab world, working both online to mobilize, and on the 
ground to march, chant and even throw themselves into 
stone-throwing clashes with security forces side by side 
with men. (AP Photo/Hani Mohammed)

Leymah Gbowee of Liberia is one of three 2011 
Nobel Peace Prize winners. Gbowee campaigned 
against the use of rape as a weapon in her country's 
brutal civil war. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia's current president and 
presidential candidate of the Unity Party (UP), is the third 
Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Liberia's October 11 general 
election will be the first domestically organised vote since 
an on-off 1989-2003 civil war and a test for a West African
country struggling to close the book on its bloody past eight
years after the fighting ceased. REUTERS/Luc Gnago

The 2011 Nobel Prize in literature was awarded on Thursday
to poet and author Tomas Transtromer of Sweden, whose
surrealistic works about the mysteries of the human mind 
won him wide recognition as the most influential Scandinavian
poet of recent decades. (AP Photo/Scanpix, Maja Suslin)

Chemistry Nobel Prize winner Israeli scientist Dan 
Shechtman won the 2011 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 
the secret of quasicrystals, an atomic mosaic whose discovery 
overturned theories about solids. (Photo by Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images)

Astronomer Adam Riess in his office at Johns Hopkins 
University in Baltimore, USA. The Royal Swedish Academy
of Sciences has announced that American Saul Perlmutter, 
US-Australian citizen Brian Schmidt and US scientist Adam
Riess will share the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics. The trio were
honored "for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the
universe through observations of distant supernovae."
(AP Photo/The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur 
Foundation, Gail Burton)

Australian Academy of Science Professor Brian Schmidt is
one of three US-born scientists to win the Nobel Prize in 
Physics for discovering that the universe is expanding at an 
accelerating pace. (AP Photo/AAS Irene Dowdy)

Saul Perlmutter, one of three winners of the Nobel Prize for 
Physics, poses with his daughter's telescope at his home in 
Berkeley, California after hearing he had won. The Royal 
Swedish Academy of Sciences said American Perlmutter would 
share the 10 million kronor ($1.5 million) award with 
US-Australian Brian Schmidt and US scientist Adam Riess. 
Working in two separate research teams during the 1990s, 
Perlmutter in one and Schmidt and Riess in the other, the 
scientists raced to map the universe's expansion by analyzing
a particular type of supernova, or exploding star. 
(AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

Dr. Bruce Beutler, director of the Center for the Genetics of 
Host Defense at UT Southwestern Medical Center, 
acknowledges applause from attendees at an event announcing
Beutler as a recipient of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physiology 
or Medicine in Dallas, Texas. Beutler is one of three scientists
chosen to share the prize for discoveries about the immune 
system. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Canadian-born scientist Ralph Steinman died three days 
before he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine for 
"his discovery of the dendritic cell and its role in adaptive 
immunity". Steinman died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 68,
having extended his life using a kind of therapy he designed. 
This is the first time in history, that the Nobel Prize, which is 
never awarded posthumously, will go to a dead person. 
(AP Photo/Mike Groll)

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Be an Entrepreneur-Create Jobs instead of finding one

As you approach the final year of the college life, the career part of the mind will be busy exploring all options. A good CAT percentile leading towards an IIM-MBA loaded with moolah, or a Master’s in the US ? Or just a good campus job. And for some, just some, chasing their dreams of may be a PhD or teaching or higher education, purely as an intellectual pursuit in a chosen field of interest. In the much-pursued search how often do people actually “choose” what they want? How often do they “seek” what they want, in an area they want?

Granted, there is social respect that comes with a good job (read- good pay) in a good (read, well known and recognised) company. But still, aren’t there other options? If you can’t find a job or company that is in line with personal interests and likes, can you “make” a job yourself? Maybe you are your best Manager! This is what start-ups are all about - Chasing a dream. And not depending on anyone else or any company to realise your dreams. Create a product or a business instead of just helping build one.

Creating jobs for instead of just filling one job in a company. Creating one’s own IP (intellectual property) as opposed to just working for a larger company helping them build their IP or products. Or worse, engaged in just services for global clients, with no IP created nor retained.

For engineering and business students, the options are even better. If in the pre-final year you can think of some interesting ideas and get a basic validation, you can start working on the initial prototypes in the summer vacation. And with this experience and insight, you can tweak the plans and work on it as a final year project. Put in that extra effort, more than what may normally be needed just to fulfill academic obligations.

Basically concurrent to the final year in college, at no additional financial cost, and maybe just additional time investment one can get the first serious version of the idea or product built. And use this to get some validation from VCs, entrepreneurs and others in that domain.

Much easier to get the attention of these experts if one has a prototype to show, rather than just discuss an idea on paper or using slides. The advantage of doing this is that the decision to embark on own venture or start-up as opposed to taking up a campus job is now much more informed and with some much usable validation. Validation of the idea. Validation of the feasibility. Validation of business possibilities. And most importantly, the Validation of the team’s interest and if it stands the test of time without fading away.

At this point or closer to this point, just before graduation you can approach either the incubation centre in your college, look for e-cells in the city or even programmes like HydCubator (IIIT-H) or iAccelerator (IIM-A). All of these can help with the process to validate the idea and the prototype and help make the decision to go forward to make it a full-fledged start-up. If the prototype is good (which it will be if serious effort went into it), you can even get some initial angel funding that will help seed the effort. Maybe get a few more engineers to join the founding team. And accelerate the process to the first serious version of the idea/product and get some customer validation, which will be key to raise more angel money and eventually onto VC money.

The ecosystem is also rapidly getting in place. From start-up events to academic incubation cells to e-cells driven by organisations like NEN (National Entrepreneurship Network) to angel networks and lot of willing entrepreneurs available to mentor. It’s a great time to think about it. Go. Chase your dreams. Create something!

Posted by Azziet Singh follow me on twitter

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Some Disruptive Innovations that changes their Market

Who are the movers, the shakers, the companies that affect profound change? And what products do they bring to market that disrupt all others, making other companies completely re-think their strategies? Let’s take a look at seven of those products whose competitors wish had never existed.

That’s what we’ll find out with this infographic by professional networking site Focus.com. You’ll see how 7 companies such as Skype, Netflix, Apple and Google rolled out products and services that approached their market in such a unique way that they changed everything. 

Besides those usual suspects, there are a few surprises in the group, too — products that lowered prices, approached their markets in unheard-of ways, even created new markets — and changed the world. See how they did it in this rich infographic, and then let us know of disruptive innovations you’ve encountered. What do you think will be the next disruptive product or service?

Posted by Azziet Singh follow me on twitter

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Write How To's Articles to Earn some Revenue

There are couple of ways by which you can make money on the web by writing how-to tips, useful advice and even opinions.

For instance, you can setup your own website and  add advertisements next to your content – that’s how most blogs (including this one) sustain themselves. The other option is freelancing – you can join an established site in your niche as a writer and they’ll pay you a monthly salary or sometimes a share in the advertising revenue itself.

Then you have a bunch of popular sites like eHow, Hubpages, Squidoo, Associated Content, Examiner and even Google Knol that work on a similar model - you can write content on almost any topic and get paid on a revenue share basis.  A big advantage with writing on such sites is that you only need to focus on creating great content and rest everything - including the article’s layout, SEO, hosting, etc. - is taken care of by the service.

Videojug, one of the most popular how-to websites on the web known for high-quality , is also getting into the game of "user generated content" with the launch of Videojug Pages – it’s a place where anyone can write how-to articles on their favorite topics and get paid per impression.

The system works something like this. You write an how-to article on Videojug Pages using their Tumblr-style online editor and publish it to the web. Videojug will add ads on the page from Google (using your AdSense ID), eBay (using your affiliate ID) as well as their own display ads. You’ll get 100% of the revenue generated from AdSense and eBay while the revenue from display ads will be split 50:50. Not bad!

There’s one very interesting feature that I think is unique to the Videojug service – you can have multiple people contribute to your how-to article and split advertising revenue among them directly inside Videojug. Each article has 100 points, you can hand out some of these points to the various contributors based on the contributions and therefore their percentage revenue share becomes the same as the number of points they own.

The kind of money that you can make by writing articles on these sites may not be enough for you to even consider quitting your day job but if your writings invite decent number of eyeballs, you can probably pay some of your utility bills from the online earnings.

Posted by Azziet Singh follow me on twitter

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