Third posting, in this article I cover miscellaneous tools, some may obviously apply others maybe not. As always, I have the completelist categorized here.
I will keep that sheet updated as I make changes, delete sites I'm not planning to review, etc. I'll try to have a link to the site on each blog post I write related to this subject.
More tools that can help you in this Social Media Jungle...
http://www.stumpedia.com/ - Stumpedia
Taken from the site "Stumpedia is a personalized social & real-time collaborative discovery tool that relies on human participation to index, organize, and review the world wide web. Stumpedia does not depend on automated bots, proprietary algorithms, or company insiders to make decisions on the relevance and ranking of search results. Stumpedia allows you to submit, rank, and personalize your own search results. The relevance of search results are unique to you and are determined by your social graph in the following order: you, your social network friends, friends-of-friends, your followers, and the overall community. A spammer who submits and ranks irrelevant results can be easily identified, blocked, and unfollowed to prevent your search results from being polluted. Users can personalize and customize search results by re-ranking, deleting, adding, and commenting on search results. This data is used to determine the relevancy of search results for the people in your social graph and vice versa. We enable users around the world to share their knowledge and interests with one another and provide an alternative to traditional search. Users are encouraged to create custom content pages for any possible search term in the world and submit links that will help people find relevant results and answers to their search requests. Links to social bookmarks, social profiles, blogs, new stories, authoriative articles, videos, images, and web pages are welcomed."
I don't see how this applies to either a Job search or increasing SEO (so a recruiter can find you). If you have an idea, please let me know in the comments
http://www.symbaloo.com/ - Symbaloo
Interesting resource. They call themselves a 'Start Page' (start pages are common) and offer a tiled screen that you can customize. Add any site you like by adding or editing tiles. Some tiles start a "widget" in the middle of the page that offers more information. For example, the Twitter tile would let you read tweets from the center widget. Add & customize multiple tabs, this could let you organize even farther. Build tabs to represent subjects, research and all related tiles could be one tab, etc. If you do a LOT of web-surfing, this could be very helpful.
http://transferr.com/ - Transferr
Just like Symbaloo only with a different visual approach. As always, I suggest playing around with different resources before you choose what works best for you. I noticed that Transferr will let you add a some document types as an icon.
http://www.worio.com/ - Worio
Taken from the site "There is an abundance of interesting stuff being shared and commented upon everyday on sites like Twitter, Digg, Delicious, and Facebook and throughout the blogosophere. Worio's mission is to make web search fun again by bringing you a personalized view of the social web alongside your boring old search results."
Like a search engine (Yahoo, Bing, Google) but different. Plug in available for Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari & Firefox browsers. Appears to offer a Social Media influence to your search results.
http://www.epernicus.com/ - epernicus
Taken from the website "Epernicus is a Boston-area company (Harvard and MIT roots) founded in 2008 by four passionate entrepreneurs with medical and software backgrounds. Our customers are world-class companies and non-profits doing cutting-edge medical research (Genzyme, the Broad Institute, GSK and Brigham and Women's Hospital, to name a few...). Our products will positively impact healthcare for hundreds of millions of people."
Are you a scientist? Interested in medical research? You should probably join Epernicus. Looks like an excellent resource to network with your peers, study ongoing research and possibly offer you input.
http://qapacity.com/ - Qapacity
Thinking about building a website? Qapacity is an option. Pricing plans from free to 19.25€/month. Free option offers 5 pages, 16 images, 1 GB of storage and 500GB of bandwidth. The free plan sounds reasonable for someone thinking about building a webpage for themselves. Remember there are other services and a quick Google search will help you find them. Look at your options and choose what best fits your needs.
That concludes the "other" section. I think I will look at Bookmarking Sites next. There are over 80 of them so it may take me some time.
Please leave feedback in the comments. Have you used any of these tools? Planning to use them? Would love to hear your input.
(Remember to ignore this, it's just all my tags. No need to read this, its just SEO. Employeer, internet, Job, Jobseeker, Lifehacker, Online Reputation Management, ORM, Recruiter, Social media, Wikipedia, chester, chester paul, chester paul lohman, paul, paul lohman, lohman, trainer, manager, Landing page, internet, internet tools, blog, blogging, bookmark, bookmarking, email, IM, shopping, social network, social networking, social news)
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
Social Media Tools, "other"
Third posting, in this article I cover miscellaneous tools, some may obviously apply others maybe not. As always, I have the complete list categorized here.
I will keep that sheet updated as I make changes, delete sites I'm not planning to review, etc. I'll try to have a link to the sheet on each blog post I write related to this subject.
More tools that can help you in this Social Media Jungle...
Sites for cataloging books. "goodreads", "LibraryThing", "Shelfari" & "weread". I'm reviewing all four at once because of their similarities and low value related to my focus ("Find The Job").
Do you love to read? The above sites are probably a great way to take advantage of your personal life and use it to promote yourself on the web. Remembering that everything you do related to your name will show up in a search result somewhere, building a profile on one of these sites could have a double reward. You get to catalog your reading collection, have conversations with people who share similar interests and promote your search ranking at the same time. I would suggest that you be careful with the books you list however. Your online activity represents you and many people will look for you online before they contact you for a potential job. If you have reading interests that conflict with your profession, perhaps you should consider cataloging them under a profile with less information about you.
A quick note on "everything you do related to your name will show up in a search result somewhere"... My first Google profile was under the name "chetmiester"; I have a second profile as "chet.lohman". The second profile ('chet.lohman') has much more information regarding my full name. Before I became interested in social media & SEO, I worked to keep my search results low. I didn't want "Google to find me". Now that I do, I treat my online profiles differently. In short, if you want to show up in search results, no matter what your profile name for any website, make sure the details of that profile have your full name somewhere. A profile for "chetmiester" that only has the name "Chet L" on the details page will be MUCH farther down the results list than a profile for "chetmiester" that has the name "Chester Lohman". Secondly, the more active you are the higher that activity will rank on a search. If you built a LinkedIn profile 3 years ago, used your full name and haven't touched it since, don't expect that profile to show up in the first page of results in a Google search for you name. If you are active, participate in groups/discussions, answer & ask questions, then you can expect that profile to probably hit the first page. Optimizing how a search engine (Bing, yahoo, Google, any of them) treats a search for your name is about what effort you put into it.
http://www.pingsta.com/ - Pingsta
Taken from the website: Pingsta is a collaborative platform for the world’s Internet experts that enables customers to procure network expertise on a pay-per-use basis and engineers to work at will. Its members include Internet inventors, fellows, professors, distinguished engineers and technical leaders in over 52 countries. Through its Intellectual Commerce Ecosystem - Pingsta ICE™ - service offering, Pingsta enables Enterprises, IT Service Providers and Government agencies worldwide to leverage network-expertise-in-the-cloud on a pay-per-use basis for break-fix technical support, consulting and R&D tasks.
Through its Virtual Private ICE - Pingsta VPI™ - service offering, Pingsta enables organizations and Government agencies worldwide to create their own expertise-in-the-cloud platform and monetize excess intellectual capacity to generate new green revenue stream that is estimated to average USD$1,000 per employee per day.
So, are you an IT person? Looking for work? You may be able to supplement your income with short-term contract work here, until you locate that next long-term position. It's a members-only site, membership is by invitation or application. Sounds like a good time to do some leg-work on LinkedIn and locate a current member for an invite.
www.boardlite.com - Boardlite
Open discussion forum for any subject you choose. Want to talk about that new Android phone thats coming out? Or how about how you hate gardening carrots but love tomatoes? It's an open forum so you can start a discussion about almost anything. You can login using Google, Yahoo, MySpace or OpenID. Share any discussion through Facebook "Like", Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Delicious, Reddit or Stumbleupon.
www.sodahead.com - SodaHead
It looks like Quora but 'louder'. Sodahead offers statistics on the questions asked, and appears to focus on debateable, yes/no questions. You can create polls, lots of images, it's a very "busy" page. "Diet Coke overtakes Pepsi, which do you prefer?". "Sara Palin blames Obama for high gas prices, do you?". Looks interesting.
www.spokentoyou.com - Spoken To You
Nice idea but doesn't appear to have fully matured. (Side note, Google, please buy this service and help it grow into something really awesome). At first glance, I was instantly impressed and ready to sign up. After further reading/listening I realize some improvements need to be made before I'm "sold". The site converts any website available as an RSS feed into audio content (mp3). Of course, you could use any device to play the content back at your leisure. On the surface this sounds incredible. The limits are a max of 15 minutes content generated daily and files will be help for up to two weeks. You can choose what content you get by adding RSS feeds to the site and adding them to your Que.
The killer for me is that 15 minute max. If I registered for this service, I could quickly add up a few hours worth of source material daily. A second downside is the voice used to 'read' the information to you. The voice quality is easily understandable but a little choppy. If they would raise that 15 minute max to something bigger, I would overlook the voice.
So, that's all I'm covering for now. My next four weeks are starting to look very busy but I will work to continue covering items as I can.
Please leave feedback in the comments. Have you used any of these tools? Planning to use them? Would love to hear your input.
(Remember to ignore this, it's just all my tags. No need to read this, its just SEO. Employeer, internet, Job, Jobseeker, Lifehacker, Online Reputation Management, ORM, Recruiter, Social media, Wikipedia, chester, chester paul, chester paul lohman, paul, paul lohman, lohman, trainer, manager, Landing page, internet, internet tools, blog, blogging, bookmark, bookmarking, email, IM, shopping, social network, social networking, social news)
I will keep that sheet updated as I make changes, delete sites I'm not planning to review, etc. I'll try to have a link to the sheet on each blog post I write related to this subject.
More tools that can help you in this Social Media Jungle...
Sites for cataloging books. "goodreads", "LibraryThing", "Shelfari" & "weread". I'm reviewing all four at once because of their similarities and low value related to my focus ("Find The Job").
Do you love to read? The above sites are probably a great way to take advantage of your personal life and use it to promote yourself on the web. Remembering that everything you do related to your name will show up in a search result somewhere, building a profile on one of these sites could have a double reward. You get to catalog your reading collection, have conversations with people who share similar interests and promote your search ranking at the same time. I would suggest that you be careful with the books you list however. Your online activity represents you and many people will look for you online before they contact you for a potential job. If you have reading interests that conflict with your profession, perhaps you should consider cataloging them under a profile with less information about you.
A quick note on "everything you do related to your name will show up in a search result somewhere"... My first Google profile was under the name "chetmiester"; I have a second profile as "chet.lohman". The second profile ('chet.lohman') has much more information regarding my full name. Before I became interested in social media & SEO, I worked to keep my search results low. I didn't want "Google to find me". Now that I do, I treat my online profiles differently. In short, if you want to show up in search results, no matter what your profile name for any website, make sure the details of that profile have your full name somewhere. A profile for "chetmiester" that only has the name "Chet L" on the details page will be MUCH farther down the results list than a profile for "chetmiester" that has the name "Chester Lohman". Secondly, the more active you are the higher that activity will rank on a search. If you built a LinkedIn profile 3 years ago, used your full name and haven't touched it since, don't expect that profile to show up in the first page of results in a Google search for you name. If you are active, participate in groups/discussions, answer & ask questions, then you can expect that profile to probably hit the first page. Optimizing how a search engine (Bing, yahoo, Google, any of them) treats a search for your name is about what effort you put into it.
http://www.pingsta.com/ - Pingsta
Taken from the website: Pingsta is a collaborative platform for the world’s Internet experts that enables customers to procure network expertise on a pay-per-use basis and engineers to work at will. Its members include Internet inventors, fellows, professors, distinguished engineers and technical leaders in over 52 countries. Through its Intellectual Commerce Ecosystem - Pingsta ICE™ - service offering, Pingsta enables Enterprises, IT Service Providers and Government agencies worldwide to leverage network-expertise-in-the-cloud on a pay-per-use basis for break-fix technical support, consulting and R&D tasks.
Through its Virtual Private ICE - Pingsta VPI™ - service offering, Pingsta enables organizations and Government agencies worldwide to create their own expertise-in-the-cloud platform and monetize excess intellectual capacity to generate new green revenue stream that is estimated to average USD$1,000 per employee per day.
So, are you an IT person? Looking for work? You may be able to supplement your income with short-term contract work here, until you locate that next long-term position. It's a members-only site, membership is by invitation or application. Sounds like a good time to do some leg-work on LinkedIn and locate a current member for an invite.
www.boardlite.com - Boardlite
Open discussion forum for any subject you choose. Want to talk about that new Android phone thats coming out? Or how about how you hate gardening carrots but love tomatoes? It's an open forum so you can start a discussion about almost anything. You can login using Google, Yahoo, MySpace or OpenID. Share any discussion through Facebook "Like", Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Delicious, Reddit or Stumbleupon.
www.sodahead.com - SodaHead
It looks like Quora but 'louder'. Sodahead offers statistics on the questions asked, and appears to focus on debateable, yes/no questions. You can create polls, lots of images, it's a very "busy" page. "Diet Coke overtakes Pepsi, which do you prefer?". "Sara Palin blames Obama for high gas prices, do you?". Looks interesting.
www.spokentoyou.com - Spoken To You
Nice idea but doesn't appear to have fully matured. (Side note, Google, please buy this service and help it grow into something really awesome). At first glance, I was instantly impressed and ready to sign up. After further reading/listening I realize some improvements need to be made before I'm "sold". The site converts any website available as an RSS feed into audio content (mp3). Of course, you could use any device to play the content back at your leisure. On the surface this sounds incredible. The limits are a max of 15 minutes content generated daily and files will be help for up to two weeks. You can choose what content you get by adding RSS feeds to the site and adding them to your Que.
The killer for me is that 15 minute max. If I registered for this service, I could quickly add up a few hours worth of source material daily. A second downside is the voice used to 'read' the information to you. The voice quality is easily understandable but a little choppy. If they would raise that 15 minute max to something bigger, I would overlook the voice.
So, that's all I'm covering for now. My next four weeks are starting to look very busy but I will work to continue covering items as I can.
Please leave feedback in the comments. Have you used any of these tools? Planning to use them? Would love to hear your input.
(Remember to ignore this, it's just all my tags. No need to read this, its just SEO. Employeer, internet, Job, Jobseeker, Lifehacker, Online Reputation Management, ORM, Recruiter, Social media, Wikipedia, chester, chester paul, chester paul lohman, paul, paul lohman, lohman, trainer, manager, Landing page, internet, internet tools, blog, blogging, bookmark, bookmarking, email, IM, shopping, social network, social networking, social news)
Friday, March 18, 2011
Social Media tools, What are the tools? .2
Second posting in my long journey to review over 350 different social media tools. I have the list categorized here
I will keep that sheet updated as I make changes, delete sites I'm not planning to review, etc. I'll try to have a link to the site on each blog post I write related to this subject.
More tools that can help you in this Social Media Jungle...
http://blogtrottr.com/ - Blogtrottr
Taken directly from the website "Blogtrottr delivers updates from all of your favourite news, feeds, and blogs directly to your email inbox, giving you the flexibility to stay updated whilst on the go. Yummy!"
If you read RSS, and by the way RSS is a fabulous source for information, having those feeds sent to your email is a pretty decent idea. Lots of people have smartphones, smartphones can receive email, so you could read your RSS feeds whenever you have a few minutes. Very nice idea.
http://joliprint.com/ - joliprint
Sometimes it's really nice to be able to print a webpage you are reading. Maybe you need it as a resource for a presentation, maybe it's your own work and you want to frame it, maybe 100 different reasons. The problem with printing webpages is that they don't format well for a printer. All the different spaces and frames and pictures, and word boxes, just doesn't print nicely on a piece of paper. Joliprint to the rescue! Just enter the URL of the page you want to print and Joliprint will reformat to something a printer likes to work with. I didn't test it for this review but they have been around for awhile, I used them many years ago and I'm sure they are better now than they were then.
http://www.printfriendly.com/ - PrintFriendly.com
Same as Joliprint above but also offers to let you add a "PrintFriendly" button to your site.
http://www.pdfonline.com/ - Create PDF Online Free
Very nice resource. .DOC (MS Word) to PDF; PDF to (MS)Word; PDF to HTML (webpage) & Web to PDF. Straightforward service that offers PDF conversion w/out having to purchase a copy of Adobe. Not a lot to say here but I'm sure someone reading this is thinking "Hey..! I NEED that!"
http://pdfmyurl.com/ - PDFmyURL
Same as www.pdfonline.com pick the one that suits you best.
http://tweetmeme.com/ - TweetMeme
More of an information source than a tool. TweetMeme aggregates the most popular Tweets and turns them into news feeds. It's all categorized "Comedy", "Entertainment", "Gaming", "iPhone" etc etc. Nice way to take advantage of Twitter for information.
http://www.twitthis.com/ - Twit this
Nice service that gives you the option to put a button on your blog. The "Twit this" button will let the reader tweet about your blog (offering a link to the blog, I'm sure but haven't verified).
http://www.quantcast.com/ - Quantcast
Taken directly from the website: "Quantcast provides direct, accurate audience measurement of your web site traffic". This is for people serious about their blog or website. Measures traffic to your site, offers analytics. Beyond what I am interested in doing.
http://www.instapaper.com/ - Instapaper
Lets you save web pages for reading later. I (did not test but) assume keeps a record on its server and lets you sync devices for offline reading. Works with computer, iPhone/iPad & Kindle.
http://readitlaterlist.com/ - Read It Later
Same as Instapaper but gets better reviews from the guys at Lifehacker (www.lifehacker.com). Also works with computer, iPhone/iPad and quite a few more. Android, BlackBerry, Palm(WebOS) has add-ins for Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer. I have been considering an application of this type for some time, will probably get one after picking up a tablet; when I do odds are it will be Read It later.
http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp - WhoIS
Not really a tool to help you with Social Media but still such a powerful tool that it gets a mention on the list. Sometimes its necessary to find out who is behind a site or perhaps an email. WhoIS will find that information for you. Simply enter the top level URL (for example, "www.androidcentral.com" from the URL "http://www.androidcentral.com/android-central-rom-review-serendipity-61-samsung-captivate") or the IP address (IE 192.168.0.1) and WhoIS will tell you who owns that domain plus a lot of other interesting information. Give it a try and see what you find.
That concludes my review of tools. I've replaced the spreadsheet that keeps track of what I have / have not reviewed. My next subject will probably be "other"; the list covers a few miscellaneous items that should only take a few posts.
Please share your thoughts, opinions, rants, raves, incoherent babbling or anything else in the comments. I always read every one and if you ask me questions, I promise to answer them.
(Remember to ignore this, it's just all my tags. No need to read this, its just SEO. Employeer, internet, Job, Jobseeker, Lifehacker, Online Reputation Management, ORM, Recruiter, Social media, Wikipedia, chester, chester paul, chester paul lohman, paul, paul lohman, lohman, trainer, manager, Landing page, internet, internet tools, blog, blogging, bookmark, bookmarking, email, IM, shopping, social network, social networking, social news)
I will keep that sheet updated as I make changes, delete sites I'm not planning to review, etc. I'll try to have a link to the site on each blog post I write related to this subject.
More tools that can help you in this Social Media Jungle...
http://blogtrottr.com/ - Blogtrottr
Taken directly from the website "Blogtrottr delivers updates from all of your favourite news, feeds, and blogs directly to your email inbox, giving you the flexibility to stay updated whilst on the go. Yummy!"
If you read RSS, and by the way RSS is a fabulous source for information, having those feeds sent to your email is a pretty decent idea. Lots of people have smartphones, smartphones can receive email, so you could read your RSS feeds whenever you have a few minutes. Very nice idea.
http://joliprint.com/ - joliprint
Sometimes it's really nice to be able to print a webpage you are reading. Maybe you need it as a resource for a presentation, maybe it's your own work and you want to frame it, maybe 100 different reasons. The problem with printing webpages is that they don't format well for a printer. All the different spaces and frames and pictures, and word boxes, just doesn't print nicely on a piece of paper. Joliprint to the rescue! Just enter the URL of the page you want to print and Joliprint will reformat to something a printer likes to work with. I didn't test it for this review but they have been around for awhile, I used them many years ago and I'm sure they are better now than they were then.
http://www.printfriendly.com/ - PrintFriendly.com
Same as Joliprint above but also offers to let you add a "PrintFriendly" button to your site.
http://www.pdfonline.com/ - Create PDF Online Free
Very nice resource. .DOC (MS Word) to PDF; PDF to (MS)Word; PDF to HTML (webpage) & Web to PDF. Straightforward service that offers PDF conversion w/out having to purchase a copy of Adobe. Not a lot to say here but I'm sure someone reading this is thinking "Hey..! I NEED that!"
http://pdfmyurl.com/ - PDFmyURL
Same as www.pdfonline.com pick the one that suits you best.
http://tweetmeme.com/ - TweetMeme
More of an information source than a tool. TweetMeme aggregates the most popular Tweets and turns them into news feeds. It's all categorized "Comedy", "Entertainment", "Gaming", "iPhone" etc etc. Nice way to take advantage of Twitter for information.
http://www.twitthis.com/ - Twit this
Nice service that gives you the option to put a button on your blog. The "Twit this" button will let the reader tweet about your blog (offering a link to the blog, I'm sure but haven't verified).
http://www.quantcast.com/ - Quantcast
Taken directly from the website: "Quantcast provides direct, accurate audience measurement of your web site traffic". This is for people serious about their blog or website. Measures traffic to your site, offers analytics. Beyond what I am interested in doing.
http://www.instapaper.com/ - Instapaper
Lets you save web pages for reading later. I (did not test but) assume keeps a record on its server and lets you sync devices for offline reading. Works with computer, iPhone/iPad & Kindle.
http://readitlaterlist.com/ - Read It Later
Same as Instapaper but gets better reviews from the guys at Lifehacker (www.lifehacker.com). Also works with computer, iPhone/iPad and quite a few more. Android, BlackBerry, Palm(WebOS) has add-ins for Chrome, Firefox and Internet Explorer. I have been considering an application of this type for some time, will probably get one after picking up a tablet; when I do odds are it will be Read It later.
http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp - WhoIS
Not really a tool to help you with Social Media but still such a powerful tool that it gets a mention on the list. Sometimes its necessary to find out who is behind a site or perhaps an email. WhoIS will find that information for you. Simply enter the top level URL (for example, "www.androidcentral.com" from the URL "http://www.androidcentral.com/android-central-rom-review-serendipity-61-samsung-captivate") or the IP address (IE 192.168.0.1) and WhoIS will tell you who owns that domain plus a lot of other interesting information. Give it a try and see what you find.
That concludes my review of tools. I've replaced the spreadsheet that keeps track of what I have / have not reviewed. My next subject will probably be "other"; the list covers a few miscellaneous items that should only take a few posts.
Please share your thoughts, opinions, rants, raves, incoherent babbling or anything else in the comments. I always read every one and if you ask me questions, I promise to answer them.
(Remember to ignore this, it's just all my tags. No need to read this, its just SEO. Employeer, internet, Job, Jobseeker, Lifehacker, Online Reputation Management, ORM, Recruiter, Social media, Wikipedia, chester, chester paul, chester paul lohman, paul, paul lohman, lohman, trainer, manager, Landing page, internet, internet tools, blog, blogging, bookmark, bookmarking, email, IM, shopping, social network, social networking, social news)
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Please pray for Chester...2
First, NO I am not talking about me. I am talking about a different Chester. Feel free to pray for me anytime the mood hits you but FIRST pray for this Chester.
This morning I popped into my local Starbucks to hear one of the employees exclaim how happy she was to see me. She had heard some very bad news about "Chester" and was worried.
I do not know this womans name.
I know she has children, I do not know their age or if they are boys/girls.
I know she is married.
I know she does not live in my suburb but in one that is close.
I, Chester Lohman, am an @$$hole. How little do I know about this person? How much time do I spend in front of a PC EVERY DAY "reaching out and trying to connect with other people"???? If I work SO HARD at networking, how come I don't know ANYTHING about this woman who cares enough to worry about me?
Social media is a wonderful thing. It allows communication at the speed of light. It allows for networking opportunities and connections that never before existed. Because of social media I have friends in places I have never visited, both inside and outside of the US. I can connect with and reach people all over the world.
Please... Please, remember that networking is about people. It is NOT about "what connecting with person X can do for me". It is NOT "connecting my way to my next job". It is NOT "networking my way to my next sale/contract/big thing".
In order to TRULY connect with a person, I need to step away from this glowing screen in front of me, look someone in the eye and say "hello..."
Chester's note:
You may notice my 'SEO paragraph' that is usually at the bottom of every article is not here this time or in the first "Pray for Chester" article. I didn't write these to promote my search engine ranking. Sometimes I just write because... well... I guess I'm not really sure. Maybe sometimes I just write because my heart says I have to.
This morning I popped into my local Starbucks to hear one of the employees exclaim how happy she was to see me. She had heard some very bad news about "Chester" and was worried.
I do not know this womans name.
I know she has children, I do not know their age or if they are boys/girls.
I know she is married.
I know she does not live in my suburb but in one that is close.
I, Chester Lohman, am an @$$hole. How little do I know about this person? How much time do I spend in front of a PC EVERY DAY "reaching out and trying to connect with other people"???? If I work SO HARD at networking, how come I don't know ANYTHING about this woman who cares enough to worry about me?
Social media is a wonderful thing. It allows communication at the speed of light. It allows for networking opportunities and connections that never before existed. Because of social media I have friends in places I have never visited, both inside and outside of the US. I can connect with and reach people all over the world.
Please... Please, remember that networking is about people. It is NOT about "what connecting with person X can do for me". It is NOT "connecting my way to my next job". It is NOT "networking my way to my next sale/contract/big thing".
In order to TRULY connect with a person, I need to step away from this glowing screen in front of me, look someone in the eye and say "hello..."
Chester's note:
You may notice my 'SEO paragraph' that is usually at the bottom of every article is not here this time or in the first "Pray for Chester" article. I didn't write these to promote my search engine ranking. Sometimes I just write because... well... I guess I'm not really sure. Maybe sometimes I just write because my heart says I have to.
Please pray for Chester...
First, NO I am not talking about me. I am talking about a different Chester. Feel free to pray for me anytime the mood hits you but FIRST pray for this Chester.
This morning I popped into my local Starbucks and the first thing one of the employees said was "Chester! I am SO glad to see you..." I was a little surprised and interested to hear why. She explained that recently she received a prayer request (thru Facebook, Twitter, I'm not sure of the source) from one of her friends to "Pray for Chester". It seems this Chester fell asleep at the wheel which resulted in a free ride to the hospital. She also learned that one of Chester's children was in the car at the time (I have kids). She did the math and started worrying about me. (I do not have information on Chester or his child's condition. I have faith that God will do what God does so I believe they will both be OK.)
So, one last time. Please pray for Chester. Pray for health, wealth and the incredible blessing of God on Chester and his family. It sounds to me like he, and his family could use some prayer right now.
Her (the employee) reaction to the information really made me think about something and I have chosen to write a quick post about it. If you would like to read the post, it's here.
I didn't feel it was appropriate to add my thoughts to this article. This article is about Chester, his needs are much greater than mine right now.
This morning I popped into my local Starbucks and the first thing one of the employees said was "Chester! I am SO glad to see you..." I was a little surprised and interested to hear why. She explained that recently she received a prayer request (thru Facebook, Twitter, I'm not sure of the source) from one of her friends to "Pray for Chester". It seems this Chester fell asleep at the wheel which resulted in a free ride to the hospital. She also learned that one of Chester's children was in the car at the time (I have kids). She did the math and started worrying about me. (I do not have information on Chester or his child's condition. I have faith that God will do what God does so I believe they will both be OK.)
So, one last time. Please pray for Chester. Pray for health, wealth and the incredible blessing of God on Chester and his family. It sounds to me like he, and his family could use some prayer right now.
Her (the employee) reaction to the information really made me think about something and I have chosen to write a quick post about it. If you would like to read the post, it's here.
I didn't feel it was appropriate to add my thoughts to this article. This article is about Chester, his needs are much greater than mine right now.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Social Media tools, What are the tools?
OK, now begins my very long journey to review over 350 different social media tools. I have the list categorized here (https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AvCqRsSCaCQXdFNHY0RZSW1GNWVGVm9VTktURFZRMUE&hl=en).
Please remember, I may not review all the sites listed. I found a catagory for "Shopping Sites" for example that do not apply to my focus. I will keep that sheet updated as I make changes, delete sites I'm not planning to review, etc. I'll try to have a link to the site on each blog post I write related to this subject.
What is my focus you ask? My focus is on either furthering my own job search or offering information that can help you in your job search. Once you land that dream job, try resources like Teri Aulph (http://www.teriaulph.com/) or Steve Laswell (http://www.nextlevelexecutivecoaching.com/), both of these resources are really good people. I know them both.
on to the list...
First I have decided to review tools that support your adventure in Social Media. I'm currently looking at 19 different tabs that each represent a different tool. None of these are Google tools. Tools and services from Google are a different blog altogether. I'm planning to write that one later, probably with a title like "Why I'm in love with Google" or something like that.
http://2tag.nl/ - 2 Tag
This site will let you convert any web URL to a QR code. What's a QR code you ask? Have you seen those funny looking black/white squares that look a little like bar codes? That's a QR code. I'm not sure of the purpose for QR codes but I know that Android developers love to use them as quick links to install apps to phones. I'm sure there are 100 other uses, for example, to show you exactly what a QR code looks like I added one below. This code will lead you to my Google Profile. You can't click it but you can snap a pic of it with your phone. A nice idea might be to make a webpage about yourself and then create a QR code. You could keep a copy of the code on your phone and share it with people or even print business cards with the code on it.
http://qrf.in/ - QRF.in
This is another site that will let you create QR codes. Can't say if one is better than the other.
bit.ly - Bit.ly
This site will let you shorten URLs. Why would you want to shorten URLs? Well if you Tweet, you have a limit of 140 characters or less, I've seen URLs longer than that. The most common use is to shorten a link to a page you want to share on Twitter. I prefer "goo.gl" but that's a blog for another time. You can find other sites to shorten URLs below.
www.addthis.com - Add This
Add This is pretty awesome stuff. You can add a "button" or "buttons" to your site, anywhere, that lets the viewer share your site with a plethora of other outlets. They can email, Twit, Blog, Facebook or over 300 other options. Add This is where derived my list to write this blog. If you have a page somewhere, you might want to consider using an Add This button. I added it to my blog already (look to the left near the top).
http://www.aviary.com/ - Aviary
Web based tool suite. Image editor, music creator, screen capture, audio editor, vector editor, image markup, effects editor & color editor. I'm sure the screen capture could be helpful in some situations.
http://box.net/ - Box.net
This is a file sharing or cloud storage service. You can store files (word docs, excel files, pictures, if its a file, you can store it) here and do one of two things. 1) You can simply use this as an online "Hard Drive" that offers you access to these files from anywhere. If you do some work on your desktop PC at home then grab the laptop and head to Starbucks, this will let you access the same file w/out having to transfer or copy it over. Nice feature. 2) You can use this as a central, web-based repository to share files. Perhaps your collaborating with someone on some project? All files can be stored here instead of a central server somewhere. My thought is is might be a great place to drop your resume.
As a note, the guys at LifeHacker really love DropBox. They are always raving about its awesome features etc etc. I trust these guys so without doing the research myself, I would vote for DropBox as the best option for this. Of course your personal preference will always come into play. Look at the options (Lifehacker did a nice review here: LifeHacker Review) and choose what suits you best.
https://www.curate.us/ - Curate.Us (Clp.Ly)
An interesting find here. For those of you into establishing a serious webpage this tool could be very useful. It appears that you can clip a section out of a webpage and then use this site to share that clip. I guess it's something like posting a link only better and more visually appealing. You can install the tool to you IE, Firefox, Safari or Chrome browser so all the major bases are covered.
Well, I'm working to keeping this to a short read so that's all the tools for now. Will post more tools later. Feel free to add your thoughts in the comments below and share my writings with anyone you think I could help.
(Remember to ignore this, it's just all my tags. No need to read this, its just SEO. Employeer, internet, Job, Jobseeker, Lifehacker, Online Reputation Management, ORM, Recruiter, Social media, Wikipedia, chester, chester paul, chester paul lohman, paul, paul lohman, lohman, trainer, manager, Landing page, internet, internet tools, blog, blogging, bookmark, bookmarking, email, IM, shopping, social network, social networking, social news)
Saturday, March 12, 2011
always remember to 'close the loop'
http://goo.gl/mE8fc "The Biggest Mistake People Make After Receiving a Favor"
The article above hit me so hard, I not only shared it the first time I read it, but reading it a second time I have to add my own thoughts...
First, let me say I agree 100% with every word Jodi Glickman wrote. No matter what profession you are in or even if your still following the school route, you should ALWAYS follow up with any source that has offered you a connection.
Remembering my focus is helping myself and others in their job search, I feel compelled to add a few words on the subject of following up...
When we are On The Hunt, we are focused. Pressures come at us from everywhere, our children, spouses, friends, extended family. Everyone means well but at times their questions and/or supporting words only increase our "Get A Job NOW!" internal pressure. This causes us to always look forward, always look for the next connection, job to apply for, meeting to attend, phone call to make or whatever.
In our constant thrust to move forward, driven by the need to 'Get That Job!', we may forget where we came from or how we got where we are at...
Ask yourself before stepping into a networking meeting or arriving at an interview that someone helped you land (or any other destination that you did not reach by yourself). "How did I get here?" No one reaches any destination alone. Even those who have been fortunate enough to land an interview or meeting 'on their own' have still received help, God is always there opening a door or creating an opportunity.
So, ask that question "How did I get here?" ask "Who helped me get here?". Remember the answer to that question, make a mental note to not only follow up with that person but to tell them "Thank you" (yes, remember to tell the Big Guy "Thanks!" too!!!).
It's a big world out there and every day it seems to me that it gets a little bigger and a little smaller all the time. We all need to remember that communication is the key to keeping everything running smoothly. Someone helped you because they are interested in you. Keep them in the loop on your progress good or bad. If it's good they will be very happy to hear it. If the progress isn't what you hoped, maybe they can help you again.
I'd love to hear your comments about how someone has helped you, you have helped someone or about giving/receiving follow up on that help.
(Remember to ignore this, it's just all my tags. No need to read this, its just SEO. Employeer, internet, Job, Jobseeker, Lifehacker, Online Reputation Management, ORM, Recruiter, Social media, Wikipedia, chester, chester paul, chester paul lohman, paul, paul lohman, lohman, trainer, manager, Landing page, internet, internet tools, blog, blogging, bookmark, bookmarking, email, IM, shopping, social network, social networking, social news)
The article above hit me so hard, I not only shared it the first time I read it, but reading it a second time I have to add my own thoughts...
First, let me say I agree 100% with every word Jodi Glickman wrote. No matter what profession you are in or even if your still following the school route, you should ALWAYS follow up with any source that has offered you a connection.
Remembering my focus is helping myself and others in their job search, I feel compelled to add a few words on the subject of following up...
When we are On The Hunt, we are focused. Pressures come at us from everywhere, our children, spouses, friends, extended family. Everyone means well but at times their questions and/or supporting words only increase our "Get A Job NOW!" internal pressure. This causes us to always look forward, always look for the next connection, job to apply for, meeting to attend, phone call to make or whatever.
In our constant thrust to move forward, driven by the need to 'Get That Job!', we may forget where we came from or how we got where we are at...
Ask yourself before stepping into a networking meeting or arriving at an interview that someone helped you land (or any other destination that you did not reach by yourself). "How did I get here?" No one reaches any destination alone. Even those who have been fortunate enough to land an interview or meeting 'on their own' have still received help, God is always there opening a door or creating an opportunity.
So, ask that question "How did I get here?" ask "Who helped me get here?". Remember the answer to that question, make a mental note to not only follow up with that person but to tell them "Thank you" (yes, remember to tell the Big Guy "Thanks!" too!!!).
It's a big world out there and every day it seems to me that it gets a little bigger and a little smaller all the time. We all need to remember that communication is the key to keeping everything running smoothly. Someone helped you because they are interested in you. Keep them in the loop on your progress good or bad. If it's good they will be very happy to hear it. If the progress isn't what you hoped, maybe they can help you again.
I'd love to hear your comments about how someone has helped you, you have helped someone or about giving/receiving follow up on that help.
(Remember to ignore this, it's just all my tags. No need to read this, its just SEO. Employeer, internet, Job, Jobseeker, Lifehacker, Online Reputation Management, ORM, Recruiter, Social media, Wikipedia, chester, chester paul, chester paul lohman, paul, paul lohman, lohman, trainer, manager, Landing page, internet, internet tools, blog, blogging, bookmark, bookmarking, email, IM, shopping, social network, social networking, social news)
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Notes on Social Dashboards #3
My list is Hellotxt (web-based), Netvibes (web-based), Yoono(web-based or add-in), Brizzly (web-based), RockMelt(webbrowser), Seesmic(web-based, PC-based), Digsby(PC-based), TweetDeck (web-based, PC-based) & HootSuite (web-based).
There are also phone tools for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm and in some cases, others. I will not be reviewing the phone tools.
In my final article on this subject, I will cover Seesmic(web-based, PC-based) & TweetDeck (web-based, PC-based). Please remember this is a general overview plus my opinions. Don't consider this a "full review". I just don't have the time to go into that much detail. I will give you a general idea how the dashboard functions and highlight points I find important.
Seesmic (seesmic.com)
Seesmic has a few options, you can go web-based or install it to your PC. I have already tried the web-based version (not reviewed in my blog) and found it to be too limited. For example, you cannot connect your LI profile in the web version.
So, on with the PC install version.
It's not bad. I have Google Reader, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google Buzz. I could add Facebook, Foursquare, Ping or a second of the accounts I already have. For example, I could have two different Twitter accounts and monitor both through Seesmic.
The interface is fairly simple. I can keep it minimized and it will popup new messages coming in which is a nice feature, this lets me go on about my day without having to worry about checking my sites for updates. Everything is in it's own column along with an "all" column at the far left. There is a quick switch button that allows toggling between looking at all columns and just the "all" column. Tweets show a Klout score, when you click on the Klout icon you see quite a bot of information about the person sending the tweet. This is a nice feature if your interested in Klout (my score is currently 28, I'm working on it). The Google reader column allows for adding a star to an item, you can also "Like", "Share" or add tags. Impressive integration with other services. LinkedIn appears to only allow Status updates but you can also add columns for for Applications (I. E. John Smith voted on a poll...), connections (see who is connecting with who) and Jobs. I would say that Jobs is a very nice feature if you are On The Hunt. I tried using this but didn't see any jobs, odd. I know I have at least one search saved in LinkedIn, I know the search has results (I checked). you can send status updates from any connected service, you could also choose an individual service or any combination. I could send an update through Twitter, LinkedIn & Buzz all at the same time, or I could just update my Buzz status. I update Buzz on different criteria so this is a really nice feature.
All in all, if I were serious about using one of these services, I would put Seesmic in a 'Second Wave' list. It's long list of features would easily survive the first cut. Would it survive the second? Maybe, maybe not.
Tweetdeck (tweetdeck.com)
OK, so maybe I found one I will keep. This is really nice and appeals to my geek nature. Lots of buttons and stuff to play with. Tweetdeck works in column format, so your information displays in columns, just like the others.
I have Twitter, LinkedIn & Google Buzz running through TweetDeck. I could also add Facebook, Foursquare, Myspace or additional Twitter accounts. I miss having Google Reader but it's not a "Gotta Have". Nice feature if you are a Chrome user, you can add TweetDeck as an add-in for your browser. If your browser is 'synced', which mine is, then any chrome browser gives you quick access to your TweetDeck account when you are away from your home PC. It has a nice little pop-up that alerts me to new information, again I can go on with work and not worry about staying up to date on things. You can customize where the pop-up happens, any of the four major corners of your screen, I like top-left, it gets my attention. Status updates can be sent from any combination of accounts you have controlled by TweetDeck. Love this because I can update LI & Twitter but not Buzz. Quick buttons at the top left for "Compose an update", "Add a new column", or "Quick Profile". I tried Quick Profile; its a search feature for Twitter. "Eric Schmidt" = nothing. "Bill Gates" = nothing. "@Bill Gates" = opened a new column with Bill Gates' profile information, profile header, picture, number of followers, etc. Button at the bottom to follow/unfollow. Really nice when you need instant profile information for someone.
Top right buttons are "Refresh" (refreshes all columns), "Single Column View" (Quick switch to only one column, minimizes the window to the size of just one column, NICE!), "Settings" (easy access to Settings panel), "?" (quick access to TweetDeck help), "Log Out" (nice for security conscious people).
Standard columns are Twitter 'All Friends' (all activity), Twitter 'mentions', Twitter 'Direct Messages', LinkedIn 'Network Updates' (Home page on your LinkedIn) but this is just for me. I'm sure it opened a Buzz column but right now I'm not interested in that. Bottom of each column also has buttons (I LOVE BUTTONS) 'Move Left', 'Move Right', 'Cloud' (icon, whats popular in this column), 'Filter', 'Mark all as read', 'Clear read updates', & 'Clear All'. Click on a profile name in a Tweet or LinkedInLinkedIn offers 'Comment' or 'Direct LinkedIn Message'.
I hope my reviews have been helpful. Social media is a crazy, crazy world. Things happen in seconds and it's really easy to get lost, get behind or just get overwhelmed. My wife doesn't understand why I'm always checking Twitter, it's because if I turn my back on that monster I end up with 100+ missed Tweets! I'm only following 103 Tweeps! What are all these people saying???? (See what I mean? lost, behind & overwhelmed). Many of these services archive the status messages for later retrieval. You can miss a day or so and come back, scan through the archive to catch the important stuff.
Please share your experience with any of these services, or others in the comments. The best review comes from someone who has used a product.
(Remember to ignore this, it's just all my tags. No need to read this, its just SEO. Employeer, internet, Job, Jobseeker, Lifehacker, Online Reputation Management, ORM, Recruiter, Social media, Wikipedia, chester, chester paul, chester paul lohman, paul, paul lohman, lohman, trainer, manager, Landing page, internet, internet tools, blog, blogging, bookmark, bookmarking, email, IM, shopping, social network, social networking, social news)
There are also phone tools for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm and in some cases, others. I will not be reviewing the phone tools.
In my final article on this subject, I will cover Seesmic(web-based, PC-based) & TweetDeck (web-based, PC-based). Please remember this is a general overview plus my opinions. Don't consider this a "full review". I just don't have the time to go into that much detail. I will give you a general idea how the dashboard functions and highlight points I find important.
Seesmic (seesmic.com)
Seesmic has a few options, you can go web-based or install it to your PC. I have already tried the web-based version (not reviewed in my blog) and found it to be too limited. For example, you cannot connect your LI profile in the web version.
So, on with the PC install version.
It's not bad. I have Google Reader, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google Buzz. I could add Facebook, Foursquare, Ping or a second of the accounts I already have. For example, I could have two different Twitter accounts and monitor both through Seesmic.
The interface is fairly simple. I can keep it minimized and it will popup new messages coming in which is a nice feature, this lets me go on about my day without having to worry about checking my sites for updates. Everything is in it's own column along with an "all" column at the far left. There is a quick switch button that allows toggling between looking at all columns and just the "all" column. Tweets show a Klout score, when you click on the Klout icon you see quite a bot of information about the person sending the tweet. This is a nice feature if your interested in Klout (my score is currently 28, I'm working on it). The Google reader column allows for adding a star to an item, you can also "Like", "Share" or add tags. Impressive integration with other services. LinkedIn appears to only allow Status updates but you can also add columns for for Applications (I. E. John Smith voted on a poll...), connections (see who is connecting with who) and Jobs. I would say that Jobs is a very nice feature if you are On The Hunt. I tried using this but didn't see any jobs, odd. I know I have at least one search saved in LinkedIn, I know the search has results (I checked). you can send status updates from any connected service, you could also choose an individual service or any combination. I could send an update through Twitter, LinkedIn & Buzz all at the same time, or I could just update my Buzz status. I update Buzz on different criteria so this is a really nice feature.
All in all, if I were serious about using one of these services, I would put Seesmic in a 'Second Wave' list. It's long list of features would easily survive the first cut. Would it survive the second? Maybe, maybe not.
Tweetdeck (tweetdeck.com)
OK, so maybe I found one I will keep. This is really nice and appeals to my geek nature. Lots of buttons and stuff to play with. Tweetdeck works in column format, so your information displays in columns, just like the others.
I have Twitter, LinkedIn & Google Buzz running through TweetDeck. I could also add Facebook, Foursquare, Myspace or additional Twitter accounts. I miss having Google Reader but it's not a "Gotta Have". Nice feature if you are a Chrome user, you can add TweetDeck as an add-in for your browser. If your browser is 'synced', which mine is, then any chrome browser gives you quick access to your TweetDeck account when you are away from your home PC. It has a nice little pop-up that alerts me to new information, again I can go on with work and not worry about staying up to date on things. You can customize where the pop-up happens, any of the four major corners of your screen, I like top-left, it gets my attention. Status updates can be sent from any combination of accounts you have controlled by TweetDeck. Love this because I can update LI & Twitter but not Buzz. Quick buttons at the top left for "Compose an update", "Add a new column", or "Quick Profile". I tried Quick Profile; its a search feature for Twitter. "Eric Schmidt" = nothing. "Bill Gates" = nothing. "@Bill Gates" = opened a new column with Bill Gates' profile information, profile header, picture, number of followers, etc. Button at the bottom to follow/unfollow. Really nice when you need instant profile information for someone.
Top right buttons are "Refresh" (refreshes all columns), "Single Column View" (Quick switch to only one column, minimizes the window to the size of just one column, NICE!), "Settings" (easy access to Settings panel), "?" (quick access to TweetDeck help), "Log Out" (nice for security conscious people).
Standard columns are Twitter 'All Friends' (all activity), Twitter 'mentions', Twitter 'Direct Messages', LinkedIn 'Network Updates' (Home page on your LinkedIn) but this is just for me. I'm sure it opened a Buzz column but right now I'm not interested in that. Bottom of each column also has buttons (I LOVE BUTTONS) 'Move Left', 'Move Right', 'Cloud' (icon, whats popular in this column), 'Filter', 'Mark all as read', 'Clear read updates', & 'Clear All'. Click on a profile name in a Tweet or LinkedInLinkedIn offers 'Comment' or 'Direct LinkedIn Message'.
I hope my reviews have been helpful. Social media is a crazy, crazy world. Things happen in seconds and it's really easy to get lost, get behind or just get overwhelmed. My wife doesn't understand why I'm always checking Twitter, it's because if I turn my back on that monster I end up with 100+ missed Tweets! I'm only following 103 Tweeps! What are all these people saying???? (See what I mean? lost, behind & overwhelmed). Many of these services archive the status messages for later retrieval. You can miss a day or so and come back, scan through the archive to catch the important stuff.
Please share your experience with any of these services, or others in the comments. The best review comes from someone who has used a product.
(Remember to ignore this, it's just all my tags. No need to read this, its just SEO. Employeer, internet, Job, Jobseeker, Lifehacker, Online Reputation Management, ORM, Recruiter, Social media, Wikipedia, chester, chester paul, chester paul lohman, paul, paul lohman, lohman, trainer, manager, Landing page, internet, internet tools, blog, blogging, bookmark, bookmarking, email, IM, shopping, social network, social networking, social news)
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Notes on Social Dashboards #2
My list is Hellotxt (web-based), Netvibes (web-based), Yoono(web-based or add-in), Brizzly (web-based), RockMelt(web-browser), Seesmic(web-based, PC-based), Digsby(PC-based), TweetDeck (web-based, PC-based) & HootSuite (web-based).
There are also phone tools for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm and in some cases, others. I will not be reviewing the phone tools.
In this article I will cover HootSuite (web-based) & Digsby(PC-based). Please remember this is a general overview plus my opinions. Don't consider this a "full review". I just don't have the time to go into that much detail. I will give you a general idea how the dashboard functions and highlight points I find important.
HootSuite (hootsuite.com)
This is the last of the web-based services I am looking at. If you Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ping, WordPress, MySpace (does anyone MySpace anymore?), Foursquare or mixi then Hootsuite is the service for you. If you blog and like to publish your blog, Hootsuite is also an excellent service. Setup is dead simple, layout is clean and easy to read. You can run everything on one "tab" (it will scroll left/right if it gets too big) or you can run multiple "tabs" and keep everything really organized. Twitter, for example has columns for the home feed (timeline), mentions, direct messages & pending tweets (I'll talk about "pending" in a sec). LinkedIn lets you look at network updates and "pending" status updates. What is "pending" you ask? or perhaps you have a really good idea already? yep, it's stuff that hasn't happened yet. How does this work? You can schedule status updates. Set a date & time, type a message, pick the profile(s) to update to and BAM it happens exactly when you told it too. (For what its worth, did you know one of the best times to get re-tweeted is 4PM EST on a Friday? That's what I have heard. I haven't tested it yet but it's a logical theory.) This is where Hootsuite really stands out from other services I have reviewed so far. Hootsuite is about business, and they mean it. Hootsuite has a free service or more advance services that you can get for an extra fee. For free you get sight analytics, URL shortening, tracking of who is clicking those shorter links and a whole bunch of other stuff. For pay, you get longer duration data trending (free is 30 days, pay is forever). Either one will let you send status updates to one, a combination or all of your social profiles that Hootsuite is handling for you. I REALLY like the 'update-all-at-one-time' feature. Very handy. If you blog and feed that blog as RSS (easy to do) you can push your blog through Hootsuite to your social profiles almost automatically. Also, the pay service will let you add additional users. If you are running SEO/ORM for a business and there is more than one person in your group, Hootsuite really becomes powerful because multiple users can access the same social profile accounts. You can also access multiple 'same-type' accounts. Have more than one Twitter account? Hootsuite is just for you. the free version can access 5 and the pay can go unlimited.
To wrap up, you have to check out Hootsuite if you are investing serious time into your online presence. I follow (twitter) that uses is and it appears to be very popular for a good reason.
Additional note, I checked out the Scheduled Updates, it works like a charm.
Digsby (digsby.com)
If you are young and really into IM services, then Digsby is the one for you. If not, then forget it. It installed "Gamesbar 2.0.1.73", "Shop to Win 2", "Surf Canyon Search Engine Assistant", Yontoo layers Client" & "WeatherBug" onto my PC when in installed. it also closed my browser windows during install. Then it closed them AGAIN during un-install. Very annoying install/un-install process. (At this moment, I'm very glad to be running Win 7 and using System Restore.I then realize (perhaps I should have read the webpage more?) it's an IM client! O well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. As IM clients go, it is AWESOME. works very well with Twitter, GMail, & LinkedIn; imagine getting LI updates from an Im client? Kinda weird but unobtrusive. Lets you go about your work and notice the updates as they happen.
I wish it had an interface other than an IM bar. I really like its update system. It even installs icons to the taskbar. I can hover over my GMail icon and see my email in a flash. It's nice but doesn't fit my style. In my opinion you wouldn't like it unless you have fond memories of the IM days of old.
I REALLY like the notifications though. That email/LI popup is just incredible.
As always, I hope this article helped you in your search or in your daily "What I do", whatever that may be. You can help me by posting something in the comments. Requests for new subjects you want me to write about, additional information you want on something I have written about, your thoughts about my writing. If you like what you are reading and want there to me more to read in the future, put something in the comments.
(Remember to ignore this, it's just all my tags. No need to read this, its just SEO. Employeer, internet, Job, Jobseeker, Lifehacker, Online Reputation Management, ORM, Recruiter, Social media, Wikipedia, chester, chester paul, chester paul lohman, paul, paul lohman, lohman, trainer, manager, Landing page, internet, internet tools, blog, blogging, bookmark, bookmarking, email, IM, shopping, social network, social networking, social news)
There are also phone tools for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Palm and in some cases, others. I will not be reviewing the phone tools.
In this article I will cover HootSuite (web-based) & Digsby(PC-based). Please remember this is a general overview plus my opinions. Don't consider this a "full review". I just don't have the time to go into that much detail. I will give you a general idea how the dashboard functions and highlight points I find important.
HootSuite (hootsuite.com)
This is the last of the web-based services I am looking at. If you Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ping, WordPress, MySpace (does anyone MySpace anymore?), Foursquare or mixi then Hootsuite is the service for you. If you blog and like to publish your blog, Hootsuite is also an excellent service. Setup is dead simple, layout is clean and easy to read. You can run everything on one "tab" (it will scroll left/right if it gets too big) or you can run multiple "tabs" and keep everything really organized. Twitter, for example has columns for the home feed (timeline), mentions, direct messages & pending tweets (I'll talk about "pending" in a sec). LinkedIn lets you look at network updates and "pending" status updates. What is "pending" you ask? or perhaps you have a really good idea already? yep, it's stuff that hasn't happened yet. How does this work? You can schedule status updates. Set a date & time, type a message, pick the profile(s) to update to and BAM it happens exactly when you told it too. (For what its worth, did you know one of the best times to get re-tweeted is 4PM EST on a Friday? That's what I have heard. I haven't tested it yet but it's a logical theory.) This is where Hootsuite really stands out from other services I have reviewed so far. Hootsuite is about business, and they mean it. Hootsuite has a free service or more advance services that you can get for an extra fee. For free you get sight analytics, URL shortening, tracking of who is clicking those shorter links and a whole bunch of other stuff. For pay, you get longer duration data trending (free is 30 days, pay is forever). Either one will let you send status updates to one, a combination or all of your social profiles that Hootsuite is handling for you. I REALLY like the 'update-all-at-one-time' feature. Very handy. If you blog and feed that blog as RSS (easy to do) you can push your blog through Hootsuite to your social profiles almost automatically. Also, the pay service will let you add additional users. If you are running SEO/ORM for a business and there is more than one person in your group, Hootsuite really becomes powerful because multiple users can access the same social profile accounts. You can also access multiple 'same-type' accounts. Have more than one Twitter account? Hootsuite is just for you. the free version can access 5 and the pay can go unlimited.
To wrap up, you have to check out Hootsuite if you are investing serious time into your online presence. I follow (twitter) that uses is and it appears to be very popular for a good reason.
Additional note, I checked out the Scheduled Updates, it works like a charm.
Digsby (digsby.com)
If you are young and really into IM services, then Digsby is the one for you. If not, then forget it. It installed "Gamesbar 2.0.1.73", "Shop to Win 2", "Surf Canyon Search Engine Assistant", Yontoo layers Client" & "WeatherBug" onto my PC when in installed. it also closed my browser windows during install. Then it closed them AGAIN during un-install. Very annoying install/un-install process. (At this moment, I'm very glad to be running Win 7 and using System Restore.I then realize (perhaps I should have read the webpage more?) it's an IM client! O well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. As IM clients go, it is AWESOME. works very well with Twitter, GMail, & LinkedIn; imagine getting LI updates from an Im client? Kinda weird but unobtrusive. Lets you go about your work and notice the updates as they happen.
I wish it had an interface other than an IM bar. I really like its update system. It even installs icons to the taskbar. I can hover over my GMail icon and see my email in a flash. It's nice but doesn't fit my style. In my opinion you wouldn't like it unless you have fond memories of the IM days of old.
I REALLY like the notifications though. That email/LI popup is just incredible.
As always, I hope this article helped you in your search or in your daily "What I do", whatever that may be. You can help me by posting something in the comments. Requests for new subjects you want me to write about, additional information you want on something I have written about, your thoughts about my writing. If you like what you are reading and want there to me more to read in the future, put something in the comments.
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