I’ll admit it: my normal workday only helps perpetuate a number of typical blogger stereotypes. So, when I was asked to film a series of videos sponsored by UPS that involved me getting dressed up (ok, business casual), shaving, and being in front of a camera all day, it certainly sounded like a big break from the norm.

After somewhere between 40 and 50 takes at a studio in New York City, the result is a series of three videos in the style of the “whiteboard” UPS commercials (Postal Service music included) about how businesses can seize the opportunities created by social media.

Obviously this is a huge topic that we’ve taken thousands of blog posts on Mashable to explain, so narrowing it down to 1-2 minute segments wasn’t easy. But we’re pretty pleased with the end result, and hope it will be valuable to those just getting started in the social media space.

• Marc Ilagan's blog

Earlier this week we brought you exclusive screenshots of a new Facebook homepage design featuring, among other things, a “Top News” filter for your news feed.

This morning Facebook announced those changes will be rolling out today, and broke down the reasoning behind the updates, which it says were largely a result of user feedback.

As we reported earlier, when you log in you’ll now be able to toggle between two views: your News Feed, which is essentially what used to live in the Highlights section, and the Live Feed, which is the same real-time feed from your friends that you’re used to. You can edit what appears in that feed via an “Edit Options” link at the bottom of the page.

• Marc Ilagan's blog

Here’s my contribution for this Friday’s #followfriday: Tim Berners-Lee. Yes, the guy who pretty much invented the World Wide Web back in 1989 (has it been that long already?) has finally joined the omnipresent microblogging service.

Berners-Lee already has over 2,500 followers, but we don’t doubt this number will increase quickly, as he remains a very influential thinker and speaker. He won a Webby award for lifetime achievement this year, he got one honorary doctorate and awaits another only in 2009, and he spoke at the Web 2.0 Summit just yesterday.

So, what was his first tweet? Amazingly, he complained about a “confusing user interfxce,” but hours later connected his Twitter and Facebook accounts with identi.ca. Cheers, Tim, we wish you a lot of happy tweets!

[Image credit: Wikipedia]

• Marc Ilagan's blog