I know that if we keep clicking the cross signs, all the suggestions keep coming back like they do in Facebook, but the trick is to click ‘View all’ under the suggestions and when you reach the page full of suggestions, just put your mouse at ‘hide’ and keep clicking as all of them hide one by one. Some twenty clicks and your Twitter is back to its normal, old self.

Now that I have done this, suggestions are not there at present but sooner or later they will come back. Now how successful is the method depends on how long does Twitter wait before I get suggestions.

Update: The thing works for say, one day, after which Twitter comes with a few more suggestions. However, if you are a Chrome user, you can remove the thing for always, with this app.

The new logo of Google is not much different from their old one, but the shadows under the letters are removed, and so the difference is noticeable at the least. Here are the 2 logos of Google as could find from my desktop screen. The one on top is Google.co.in while the one below is Google.com, the new logo.

But then, talking of the whole appearance, it seems that the new Google is looking somewhat like Bing, though they don’t show a page’s summary if you hover on that, something that Bing does.

Here is a new look of the Google search results page. Click on the picture for a larger view.

1. I do not have friends on Twitter, Why do I join it then?

Frankly, Twitter is not Orkut, or even Facebook. Twitter is much more open in terms of talk, and you can and do talk to people you hardly know. You follow unknown people for various reasons, like matching interests, similar likes or dislikes, business prospects, sense of humor or simply because of the way they tweet. So when you go out there on Twitter, find people you like and simply start following them. If you want to keep limited to your friends strictly, Twitter may not be the best platform for you.

2. What do I actually do on Twitter?

You have joined Twitter and even started following your friends (which might not make big numbers) but not many people follow you and you have no idea what to do next. This is one thing that happens to almost all of us when we join Twitter.

Unfortunately, most people give up early and that is the reason Twitter is still limited in it’s reach. In case you are really interested, you will find a way, but if you are not that interested, you leave Twitter and many times it may leave a part of your potential unexhausted if you were planning to join Twitter to promote something, like your business, services, or some campaign. So if you are on Twitter and wondering what to do, here are some things to start with.

Speak. Yeah, Tweet. Simply starting to write whatever you’re thinking, that is, speaking your mind, is probably the best way to start. People around may befriend you for your views. Just be yourself, and don’t try and act ultra smart. That, sometimes, may go negative.

Follow. As I said, keep searching for more and more people with similar interests as yours. The more people you follow, the more you get recognized in the Twitterverse. Also, write a good and short bio for yourself. That helps people people with similar interests find you.

Interact. If you’re following someone, do try to interact with them. If anyone needs help and you can, go ahead and leave an @ reply to the person with whatever you can offer. Retweet people with credit if you think others will like to know what you just read in a tweet. The more you interact and help people, the more they like you. I have many friends on Twitter I have never seen but who do help me with anything they can simply because of the personal rapport we share.

Indulge. Yes, Indulging is more than just interacting. If you have a good sense of humor, you are more than welcome on Twitter. So are you if you have a good knowledge of the world around you. Do not show off, but if you involve yourself, especially when there are some trends doing rounds, you can be better identified and more liked.

Get informed. Frankly, since the time I joined Twitter, the need to read newspapers has reduced considerably as I get more news on Twitter itself. You may follow newspapers, news channels and all on Twitter, but actually they aren’t much needed either if you’re following a number of active people, say hundred or more, because in that case, you get almost all significant news in tweets.

3. How can I promote my business on Twitter?

Many people are joining Twitter to promote their businesses, services or simply their websites/blogs. If that is your objective, be sure of one thing: Until you’re a major name in your business, blandly promoting your business/service won’t help. Go on Twitter like a normal tweeter (even if you’re tweeting with your business’s name) and build rapport with the Twitterverse by interacting, involving yourself and indulging and make your promotion a part of your tweets. That way you can make your business reach more people. @90di is a good example of promoting business through Twitter.

So here is what I think is essential to get started on Twitter. I hope next time you go to Twitter, you don’t ask what do I do here.

Some time back I saw on Twitter than #AamirKhanLive was trending. I decided to take a look and found that Aamir Khan was actually live on a site called ustream and the link was there in all tweets. It surprised me a bit but I was more interested in watching the live chat and was able to catch the last few minutes on the site.

As the chat came to an end, I got to know on Twitter that Aamir was chatting and it was live on Facebook too. Great. But the question was, how could it trend. I saw the pattern of tweets and noticed something. All tweets that were coming with a hashtag #AamirKhanLive, started with ‘Hey @aamirkhan’ and ended with the ustream link for the chat window. Here is a picture:

Simply, the site had created many users and made the hashtag trend at the right time so that the link goes everywhere and they not only get number of visitors but get popular in longer run too.

I guess that was an example of perfect spamming. Isn’t it?

I am a small blogger and haven’t got many regular visitors as yet. So I was happy to see that my review was on 8th position in Google search for Veer music review. Interestingly there were reviews from famous sites above my link on search page where everything was N.A. I digged the link which came on 4th but vanished after sometime. So my link went to 8th and then came back to 7th. Finally I left Veer and started doing other works. After sometime I checked google again and found my link in 3rd position. This was big for me, as I was expecting big number of visitors and that was happening for a few hours, when I suddenly noticed that my link was nowhere in the first 5-6 pages of Google results.

I was wondering when I was having my evening snacks. At the time I was searching on my mobile to confirm if the link was gone from everywhere. There was a link that caught my eye. It had exactly the words I had used in the beginning of my review. Since I was on a default browser of phone that supported quite less sites, I decided to go back to the desktop and look into the matter. Finally I found that the site, called mixxnews.com had my complete review without a single mention of mine or my blog.

Like everything else, I went to Twitter and posted the problem. Suddenly I got a person saying he was friend of owner and was ready to help. So within minutes my post was removed from there and some other review came up, from some other site, my guess is.

Now I searched Google after the incident and I cannot see my website’s link for the music review till page 15. Wondering where it has gone from 3rd position in the morning. Interesting thing is, I am still getting my text on Google’s first page, not only for the site that copied my link, but even on other sites where the copier guy gave his links. So my text is getting him visitors even now, though his entire review has changed.

That was my prize for writing review before all others.