Five Free Apps » trends

The 10 Most Followed Google Plus Users

Brian Mongold — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 22:39:29 +0000

Google Plus is exploding in popularity. The new social networking giant is a bit of a Facebook and Twitter hybrid, providing the ability to read and share content with friends, coworkers and others and to also follow anyone you choose.

Below, you’ll find the current listing of the 10 most followed Google+ users. As you’ll see in the listing, Google and tech enthusiasts are garnering the most follows from Google+ users.

This listing is as of 27 July 2011 with data collected from a Google+ Directory.

1. +Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook | 0 Friends, 185K Followers

2. +Larry Page – Co-founder of Google | 0 Friends, 95K Followers

3. +Sergey Brin - Co-founder of Google | 0 Friends, 72K Followers

4. +Vic Gundotra – Senior VP of Social for Google | 0 Friends, 48K Followers

5. +Robert Scoble – Tech Blogger | 4K Friends, 47K Followers

6. +Leo Laporte - Founder and Chief of TWIT Netcast Network | 400 Friends, 47K Followers

7. +Ray William Johnson – 5K Friends, 45K Followers

8. +Kevin Rose – Cofounder of Revision3, Digg, Pownce and Milk | 100 Friends, 42K Followers

9. +Pete Cashmore – Founder and CEO of Mashable | 150 Friends, 39K Followers

10. +Felicia Day – Web series creator, Actress| 0 Friends, 37K Followers

YouTube Chart Toppers: Most Popular YouTube Videos This Month (Mar 11)

Brian Mongold — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 11:51:41 +0000

With the popularity of FFA’s YouTube related posts, I’ve decided to dedicate a monthly post to highlight all the chart toppers. I’ll dig into the top 5 most liked, most viewed, top favorited YouTube videos, then hit the most subscribed YouTube Channels. This month’s big winner has to be Jennifer Lopez, who garnered the most likes, views and favorites for the month of March. Lady Gaga finished a distant second in two of these categories. Check out the most dominant YouTube Videos in the month of March.

Most Liked YouTube Videos

This month’s most liked YouTube videos feature some JLo, Gaga, support for Japan and perhaps the most hated video in Rebecca Black’s Friday.

1. Jennifer Lopez – On The Floor ft. Pitbull – 303K Likes

2. LADY GAGA – Born This Way (Cover) – 185K Likes

3. Honk For Japan – 171K Likes

4. Rebecca Black – “Friday” (Brock’s Dub) – 151K Likes

5. Songify This – Winning – A Song By Charlie Sheen – 148K Likes

Most Subscribed YouTube Channels

Unlike the other top charts, when it comes to YouTube channels, gaming seems to attract the most subscribers.

1. w2mcrew – 43K Total Subscribers

2. HolyCrapItsHutch – 32K Total Subscribers

3. TheGUNNShop – 31K Total Subscribers

4. zegrac3 - 26K Total Subscribers

5. OficialMundoCanibal – 15K Total Subscribers

Any surprises with the top videos this month?

Android Statistical Analysis: Top Android Phones, Total Apps, And Free vs. Pay

Brian Mongold — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 22:09:12 +0000

Great news Android fans! One of the most prominent Android resources, AppBrain.com, now provides market statistics that illustrate trends and popularity of Android devices and apps.

While most of the statistics are based on AppBrain users, this is the best tool to measure market share and usage stats on a daily basis. Though the total number of AppBrain users is not provided, the AppBrain app has been downloaded by well over 250k users (per the Android Market) and the site has over 50k Facebook fans.

Note: All statistics provided are as of 14 March 2011.

The graphic below shows just how big of a lead the Samsung Galaxy S has on the other Android smartphones, but the Samsung Galaxy S market share has dropped 7% in the last month. Android phones climbing the charts include the LG Optimus S (up 77%), the HTC Desire HD (up 55%), Huawei Ascend (up 48%) and the HTC Wildfire (up 39%).

While it’s quite fascinating to see which devices are most prominent, I’m most intrigued with the app stats. AppBrain utilizes a “low quality filter detection system,” that includes apps Google has removed. As of today, there are currently 148,807 Android Apps available in the Android Market. As you can see in the graph below, 37% of those apps have been flagged as low quality apps.

Also intriguing is the download distribution statistics. Of the 148K Android Apps available, almost 93K are free while 56K will cost you. Based on the numbers, the biggest majority of pay apps (21k apps) run you between $1 to $2.50.

You’ll find several more interesting statistical categories by heading over to AppBrain. What do you think of the statistics? Any surprises?

Today’s Five Hottest Free Android Apps (Download Worthy)

Brian Mongold — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:39:46 +0000

Have you found any awesome Android apps recently? I have! Today’s list is a compilation of the five most popular Android apps (per Appbrain) that I think you’re going to love. From modifying your launch screen, to revamping your contact list, the free apps below are definitely worth checking out.

3D Contact List
This app displays additional details about your contacts. Simply tap on tap your contact’s phone number to call them or text. To edit the info, perform a long press or press the menu button. Display options provide different ways to view the list.

Camera360 Free
This app delivers approximately 30 different effects with six shooting modes. The modes consist of effect, scenery, funny, tilt-shift, color and normal. In addition, you can share your photos with your friends by network.

Ultra Voice Changer
This app lets you add the following effects; robot, alien, alien II, backwards, chipmunk, deep, helium, possessed, echo, bee, hyper and slow motion.

Thrutu
This app adds new features to your calls. Share your location by mapped location, contacts details, take a picture and share it during a call and even force the person you are talking to’s phone to vibrate.

Open Home 6
This launcher provides various dock styles, hundreds of free skins and icon packs, widget resizing, custom shortcut icons, theme music, weather widgets, font and color customization and more.

Have you tried any of the apps listed above? Have any great app on your mind that you’d like to share? Let me know what you think.

Today’s Most Viewed YouTube Videos

Brian Mongold — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 00:59:52 +0000

In keeping up with the latest trends, one of the key sites to keep your eye on is YouTube. Today, I thought I’d share a quick post to highlight the five most viewed videos of the day. If you were expecting to see music videos in the list, you’ll be disappointed. Instead, UFC, Soccer, a video game and a TV Show performance has been grabbing the most views in YouTube land. Let’s take a closer look…

1. Following the TKO loss to Cain Velasquez, Brock Lesner has an interesting moment with The Undertaker as The Undertaker is getting interviewed.

2. I know little about this game, but it’s caught the eye of quite a few gamers. Looks like a new World of Warcraft game will be hitting the stands soon.

3. In one of the greatest heavyweight fights in UFC history, new champ Cain Velasquez dominates Brock Lesner in an upset.

UFC 121 Cain Velasquez Destroys Brock Lesner by TKO – 1st Mexican American UFC Heavyweight Champion

4. Real Madrid Vs. Racing Santander 6-1 Goals & Full Highlights

5. Matt Cardle performs his take of Baby One More Time, by Britney Spears.

Which videos caught your eye? Did you watch UFC 121? Feel free to sound off.

3 Twitter Analytic Tools to Track and Analyze Your Twitter Statistics

Brian Mongold — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:20:15 +0000

Twitter is one of the most prominent social networking sites and continues to be widely used by bloggers, business owners, celebrities, techies, social networkers and just about anyone who has an internet connection and an excuse to use it these days. While so many have Twitter accounts, few know how effective their Twitter activity is.

My focus today is on providing you three excellent tools that will show you how often you’re tweeting, who you retweet the most, your twitter rank and score and ways you can improve your Twitter experience.

TweetStats – Twitter analytics is a tool to graph your Twitter stats. The different graphs consist of your Tweet Timeline, average tweets per day, replies, who you retweeted and much more information and statistics. Below you’ll find my @EazyCheezy TweetStats.

Twitter Grader – Twitter Grader is a very interesting tool. It calculates your rank, number of followers and individuals you are following and updates. You get a Grade out of 100. My Grade for @EazyCheezy is 97.4, not bad. You’ll also be able to see your tagcloud and garph your trends.

Twitalyzer 2.0 – Twitalyzer is great for businesses and users who are looking to improve their Twitter use. It’s also the closest Twitter tool I’ve found to Google Analytics. From your dashboard, you can get detailed information such as number of clicks for links you Tweet, context, goals, detailed recommendations, referrers and much more. From the main page, you can see scores in areas such as engagement, influence, generosity, clout, retweeted, referenced and many more categories.

The 5 Hottest Firefox Add-ons – Stylish, FlashGot, FastestFox and More

Brian Mongold — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:48:24 +0000

To me, there’s no better browser on the planet than Firefox. Firefox gives me everything I need and lets me fully customize my browser, thanks to the countless amazing Add-ons and themes. Today, I wanted to highlight the 5 overall most shared Firefox Add-ons within the last 7 days. If you’re a Firefox user and want to checkout which Add-ons are the hottest, look no further. Enjoy!

5. Stylish lets you customize websites you view. It allows you to remove unnecessary content, modify the colors or accomplish a complete redesign of the site. You’ll be able to add, delete, enable, disable and organize your user styles without any coding.

4. FlashGot is a neat little add-on that gives you the ability to download one link, selected links or all links on a page together quickly with one click. The FlashGot Media command gets video and audio clips while they’re playing.

3. Facebook Dislike Beta adds a dislike button to your Facebook page.

2. 1-Click Weather lets you quickly view weather conditions and up to 5 days of forecast information within your Firefox Browser and instant access to additional detailed and customized weather information.

1. FastestFox takes the crown for top shared add-on within the last week. This add-on speeds up your browsing with parallel downloads, next page auto-loading, enhanced browsing, etc.

I’ve used all these Add-ons, with the exception of Facebook Dislike Button. I just personally don’t have interest in it. All the other Add-ons are pretty useful and well done. I can’t wait to have some fun with Stylish. What’s your favorite Firefox Add-ons?

ESPN.com 1998 to 2000 – Fun With the Wayback Machine

Brian Mongold — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:38:18 +0000

As you’ve probably seen in the past, I occasionally enjoy playing around with the Internet Archive to compare sites of today with their previous designs of the past. Today, I decided to do a quick comparison of ESPN from 1998 to 2000. I was going to take it all the way til today, but due to the size of the pics, I’ll instead expand this post into a few extras to showcase the significant design changes. In preparing this post, one of the most intriguing aspects was reading some of the old stories. Relax, take off your shoes and take a look at ESPN.com from 1998 to 2000.

December 3rd, 1998

As I examine the page above, a few things stick out. First of all, what’s this infoseek search stuff? It’s obviously terribly ugly as many webpages were in 1998. John Elway is getting ready to retire, somebody gave up a 6th round pick for Rodney Peete, ESPN can’t spell the Patriots very well and our favorite bad owner Daniel Snyder is about to empty his wallet, $800 Million worth, for the train-wreck that is the Redskins.

October 13th, 1999

Still ugly, but not as ugly. The stories are interesting with the Rams at top of the power rankings. I forgot they were good once upon a time. Other tidbits include the evil Eagle fans cheering after Michael Irvin’s neck injury, the Vikes in last place, while Cade McNown and Erik Kramer are getting ready to start NFL games. As a Bears fan, I’ll leave the Cade McNown draft blunder alone.

October 19th, 2000

Still ugly, but we’re starting to see a little bit better design. Of the NFL rushing leaders above, guess who is the only one left that’s still playing? Good old Kurt Warner, back in his magical years with the Rams. Looks like the Rams were still a powerhouse. The Top 5 of the Power Rankings feature the Rams, Raiders and Dolphins. And look at that, Ryan Leaf surprises his coach. Yep, that was your number 2 overall pick back in the day.

I hope you enjoyed. Usually when I start playing with the Wayback Machine, it turns into a post. If anyone is interested, I can continue this. Let me know what you think.

I use Google AdSense to help get a return on expenses of hosting the site. One thing I’m attempting to learn more about is how to best utilize keywords, search engine optimization and proper ad placement without taking away from the quality of the site. In the past, I’ve briefly experimented with Commission Junction, PepperJam Networks and Amazon Associates to get a feel for each affiliate marketing option. Ultimately, I prefer the simplicity of Google AdSense. For those like me, below are some free methods to finding the right keywords to assist you with creating relevant content.

Keyword Tools

Google AdWords Keyword Tool – Type in a word and get keyword examples with statistics on search volume for the generated keyword ideas.

Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool – Nice alternative for the AdWords Keyword Tool. Type in a word and get a listing of the top 100 keywords related to your term.

WordTracker Free Keyword Search - Another great tool that works similiar to AdWords and Overture. Provides a listing of the top 100 keywords related to the word you provide.

Trends

Google Hot Trends - Shows you the latest hot queries for terms being searched through Google.

What’s Hot Now – dc metro, us open golf scoreboard, mark sanford, jordy smith and akris clothing.

Twitter #hashtags – Hashtags are used within Twitter to show whats popular on Twitter in real-time. It’s a quick way to see top news, topics, trends, etc.

What’s Hot Now – iranelection, squarespace, musicmonday, neda and fb.

Top 100 Paying Keywords – If making money is your goal, this listing can be beneficial. I’m amazed with how many medications are listed.

Top 5 Paying Keywords – soma at $5.20, tramadol at $5, fioricet for $4.74, cheap tramadol for $4.42 and tramadol online for $4.38.

Top 500 Internet Keywords in the Last 48 Hours or 90 days - Use the free tools on this site to find the top current keywords. By seeing the top keywords, it can help you determine a topic to cover if your goal is to post content that people want to read.

What’s Hot Now – google, yahoo, youtube, myspace and craigslist.

More Sites and Tools

Keywords with Highest Price Per Click

Do you have any great tools or sites to use to help determine the most beneficial keywords. Any thoughts about the listing above?