It seems likes these days the only thing constant about our favorite social networking tool is confusion when it comes to navigating. Once you finally figure out where your profile and news feed are, it moves! We feel your pain. And we’re here to outline a few of these new changes and what they mean for your online privacy.

We talked to Great Day Houston this morning about the recent changes. View the video here, or read our recap below.

The New Subscribe Button

Before this change, you could only see information from the people you were friends with, and limited info from the people you weren’t friends with. With the new Subscribe Button, located at the top right-hand corner of a profile, you can now 1.) “subscribe” to the updates of people  you are NOT friends with, and 2.)  cater the types of updates you see from those you ARE friends with. Confused? Let’s break it down:

If you ARE friends with someone, you can now ADD or REMOVE information from your news feed such as:

• Life Events (Wedding, Move, School, Job)
• Status Updates
• Photos + Videos
• Games
• Comments + Likes

By default, your updates are “Friends Only.” So you’d either have to go into your settings and make ALL of your updates Public, OR each time you make a post, you have the option of making it public.

Smart Lists

Lists are nothing new to Facebook. They debuted in 2007 and a miniscule amount of people used them. Who wants to go through 500 friends and categorize them to lists? Speculatively in reaction to Google’s social network that debuted last month Google+, Facebook has made it easier to create these lists they call Smart Lists.

Smart lists have 4 categories:

• City
• School
• Work
• Family

Top News

Top news is also a change that isn’t necessarily new. A few years back, Facebook introduced Top News, stories that are non-chronological that appear at the top of your news feed. It’s basically Facebook guessing at what posts would be of interest and relevant to you. What IS new is the little blue triangle that appears to indicate that it is a Top Story, AND you can now teach Facebook what to put here. (See Graphic). It also allows you to in-line unsubscribe from certain updates, and control what level of information you recieve: All Updates, Most Updates, or Only Important.

A few more changes

You’ll also notice Bigger Photos in your stream and on your wall, a welcomed change, in our opinion, from the tiny photos updates in previous versions.

Has the News Ticker on the Home page caused you to have seizures yet? An ongoing running account of ALL your friends’ activities, and even some you are not friends with, now shows up on your Home page. DO NOT stare directly at the News Ticker. Vertigo may ensue.

If you’ve been hearing about the new Timeline, you probably waste too much time on the internet. We kid. But really. Timeline is coming to Facebook in the next few weeks, and will attempt to better account for your entire life on Facebook since joining. Think: a baby book for EVERY year of your life. Photos, Status updates, Life Changes, will all now be viewable by viewing a “snapshot in time” the timeline. Let’s see, what were we doing 1 year ago today? Does anyone care? Do we care? You better, because it’s coming!

This year, COLAB has been participating in a monthly education series at Culturemap cleverly titled Culturemap Connect. We’ve had a great time getting to “connect” with local area advertisers, helping them with digital marketing and social media needs.

Next up, one of our fav-o-rite topics: BLOGGING!

On Wednesday, July 27th Our fearless leader and avid blogger Monica will be showing these savvy business owners how to continue a conversation through a company blog, and how to extend their brand awareness.

Now, you know we love us some WordPress, but there are plenty of online platforms that will work for any corporate blogging platform. Check back here next week and we’ll share all of our blogging secrets from the presentation. Well, maybe not ALL our secrets.

Have a great week, and keep on keeping on!

Color is a new location-based social photo-sharing app for the iPhone and Android that allows you to see what other people around you are doing.

Say you walk into a restaurant with twenty people in it. You sit down at a table with four friends, and start chatting. Then one of your friends pulls out their phone, fires up Color, and takes a snapshot of you and your friends.

That photo is now public to anyone within around 100 feet of the place it was taken. So if anyone else in the restaurant fires up Color, they’ll see the photograph listed in a stream alongside other photos that have recently been taken in the vicinity.

Color takes living vicariously to a whole new level, but is it going too far?

The difference between this app and other location-based apps is that there are virtually no privacy controls, or explicit friend or following systems. As you move around, Color automatically updates the list of people nearby, providing what the company hypes as an “elastic social network”; there’s no checking in or dictating who sees what.

The app, which received a staggering $41 million in start-up investments – (that’s more than Google), is being downloaded like crazy. In just 24 hours, Color has become the second most downloaded app on iTunes.

What are your thoughts and opinions on Color? Will you use it?

Color Demo from Color Labs, Inc. on Vimeo.

It’s a Hoedown! We’re unhitching our wagon and headed north toward the Capitol Sunday, March 13, 5 pm - 9 pm at Scholz Beer Garten in Austin, Texas for our 3rd Annual SXSW Girl + Guy Party hosted by Kirtsy + Alltop!

We’ve roped in some more girl power this year by way of Mighty Girl!

For our 3rd year,  at Scholz Beer Garten (San Jacinto @ 17th).

Join us for Beer, BBQ, Bands and Bowling, with local host, Culturemap.

Guy Kawasaki and the Kirtsy chicks invite you to giddy on up in the ATX for SXSW Interactive. Guy will be launching his new book, Enchantment.

Our favorite cowboys and girls YouData will be saddling up with their full-sized Chuckwagon serving up some Terlingua Chili and yummy Scholz BBQ.

Canopy’s Wine Sisterhood will be on hand serving up their Purple Cowboy, and don’t forget to jump inside to Scholz’s Bowling Lanes to visit Get Page One for a round of 10 pins!

Attendance is limited, and you must RSVP “YES” via this invite to be on the list. So giddy up, y’all! And see ya there, pardners!

The address for Scholz Beer Garten is:

1607 San Jacinto

Austin, Texas 78701

Friday, March 11, 5 p.m.

Not My Job: The Ultimate Content Strategy Smackdown

This panel, hosted by Kristina Halvorson (Brain Traffic), Lisa Welchman (WelchmanPierpoint) and Nathan Carson (EightShapes) will discuss cross-content strategies of web pages and the like.

Friday, March 11, 5 p.m.

Block Party Capitalism: Where Analog and Digital Intersect

This panel will explore the evolution of the digital world from a business perspective, so that we buy and sell more effectively. Hosted by John Gerzema (BrandAsset) and panel including start up founders, large companies and local entrepreneurs who work at the intersection of this analog and digital movement.

Friday, March 11, 5:30 p.m.

Design Workshop: 80 Challenges To Sharpen Your Design Skills

Need innovative ideas for interactive products and services? David Sherwin has you covered. The Frog Design author will draw on concepts from his recently released book Design Workshop: 80 Challenges To Sharpen Your Design Skills for the expert in you.

Sunday, March 13, 12:30 p.m.

Design-Driven Innovation: How Designers Facilitate the Dialog

Carola Thompson (Mind Jet) and Jim Nieters (Yahoo) host this event on the facilitation of design group workshops in order to help collaboratives generate new creative ideas that will shake up the market.

Which panels are you most excited for?

In honor of Go Texan Day and embracing the honorary Texan spirit, Ah-Ha! Creative has put together a mini contest.

We’re inviting all our H-town pals to submit their favorite chili recipe by 4pm on Thursday afternoon. We’ll gather all the entries together and post them online for an open public vote Friday morning. Check our twitter stream or Facebook fan page that morning to get the link to vote. Voting will end at 11:59pm Friday night.

Submit your recipe here:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dHNqTVp5Zi03eXpTMUM3azBIUHJKZWc6MQ

Then, on Tuesday March 1st, to celebrate the kickoff of this year’s Rodeo, we’re hosting a chili tasting of the top 3 recipes with our friends at Colab & Primer Grey. They’ll be helping us choose the official winner of the best chili, but we’re inviting all of you to stop in for lunch between 11:30am-2:30pm at Primer Grey HQ for chili, cornbread, iced tea and dessert (yes, FREE FOOD).

Please RSVP here if you plan stop by so we know how much grub to make:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=190621774304356

We can’t wait to see your smiling faces. And hopefully you’ll be dressed like cowgirls & cowboys with us since it’s Rodeo time.

The prize?… Ok, ya there’s always a prize. Besides bragging rights, the winner of the best tasting chili gets a $25 gift card to Armadillo Palace & everyone who submits a recipe gets a free download of our virtual chili cookbook. We’ll email it to you shortly after the contest & it will include the top entries so you can try making them at home on your own!

We Heart Our Loft Space. And you can, too!

Primer Grey + COLAB = PGCO.
And #PGCO is looking for some rad loft mates to share our work days with.
Yup. We’ve got space available in our Erie City Ironworks Building in the Arts Warehouse District of Houston.

The total square footage of our beloved loft is more than 1600 sq. ft. with a large full kitchen with coffee machine, full bath and shower, storage area, TV and conference table (great for presentations), and an awesome patio, all shared downstairs.

Your space would be upstairs and is made up of an apprx. 200 sq. ft. open office area and 75 sq. ft. enclosed space. It is large enough to accommodate 2-3 people’s desks/workspaces (previously 2 people shared the space).

The loft is located near downtown across from Dakota Lofts and around the corner from Last Concert Cafe at 1305 Sterrett St.

Our community is filled with Artists, Photographers, Video Professionals, and friendly neighbors.

The price is $650 a month plus 1/3 of bills (your share would usually be about $100), high-speed internet, bi-weekly housekeeping, exterior maintenance, and bi-weekly recycling pickup. The space currently has 3 desks and chairs available for use, or we can remove if you have your own furniture.

You could move in immediately, but we’d like to find someone by March 1, 2011. First month’s rent at move in, and we’d ideally like a 6 month commitment.

A little about #PGCO:
The loft is currently home to Primer Grey, a marketing and web development agency (www.startwithgrey.com) and COLAB, a PR + Events agency. We are all creative and enjoy coming to work in this space. We work very hard and are very respectful of one another’s work habits, client meetings, use of shared space, etc. We also play hard and like to socialize both in and out of the office. We are lovers of dive bars, cheap beer, good music, great food and fun.

You just need to be friendly, communal and looking for a positive, productive space to do great work. If you are looking for space and think you’d fit in with our little family, drop us a line. We’d love to meet you!

More pics of the space here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=185936&id=664856809&l=b5b2b1e1f1

Contact cliff@startwithgrey.com to come see the place. We know you’ll fall in love like we have.

On February 10, we were thrilled to celebrate Azur West’s grand opening with owners Nick Brines and Greg Decker. The sophisticated new salon is the first and only Shu Uemura Sanctuary Salon in the country, which embraces the Japanese hair care product philosophy of nature, art and science.

The event welcomed 300 guests including local fashion favorite Chloe Dao, the Houston Ballet’s Jo Furr, Jean Maye and Joanna Hartland. Food and beverages included complimentary wines by the Wine Sisterhood of Canopy Wines, a specialty Zentini cocktail themed by INOA – the new haircolor revolution by L’Oréal Professionnel – and savory treats by Eddie V’s. Guests marveled at Neal Hamil models who were fully clad in Asian-inspired geisha hair art by Azur West Haigo Artists and makeup by Jen Marine and Sarah Tucker.

We would like to sincerely thank all of our sponsors, including: Any Occasion Party Rental, Canopy Wines, Eddie V’s, Toosies, and West Avenue.

Recent Press:

• Culturemap.com - Enter the hair Sanctuary: First Shu Uemura Azur West salon unveiled at West Ave
• HoustonPress.com – New Houston Salon Azur West Is the Third of Its Kind in the Nation
• Examiner.com – Azur West: a Shu Uemura salon combining luxury with the art of hair in West Ave
• Houston Register – Dime Piece: Houston’s 10 Sexiest Salons

File this one under RAD!

COLAB was recently nominated in the The Businessmakers Radio Show’s Business Maker of the Year Award in the Rising Star category. Thanks for all of your votes. We are beyond thrilled to be among some of Houston’s best entrepreneurs.

We love this city and are lucky to be working with some of its best companies.

Big thanks to the Businessmakers Show who consistently highlights the hard-working entrepreneurs of our great city!

We are so proud of our client Ars Lyrica Houston, Houston’s early music for being nominated for a 2011 Grammy for their recording of Johann Adolf Hasse’s Marc Antonio e Cleopatra. It was an honor for the ensemble to be nominated among other prestigious and world famous orchestras.

Here is some amazing coverage of Ars Lyrica’s outstanding acheivement:

• http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ent/7235056.html
• http://www.houstonpress.com/events/ars-lyrica-season-sneak-preview-1921041/
• http://culturemap.com/newsdetail/12-07-10-violin-virtuoso-and-houston-music-pioneer-sergiu-luca-dies/