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It’s WebWorkerDaily’s fault that I’ve bought an iPod touch (s aapl). (That’s my excuse, anyway.) As I looked at potential subjects to write about, I kept seeing cool apps, and I need to be able to test them, right?

But why not buy an iPhone, or a Palm Pre, which I’d had my eye on for several months? The Pre seems to be a good phone, but it doesn’t yet have the apps that the iPhone does. And the monthly fees for Pre service are considerably higher than what I’m paying now. The iPhone’s monthly fees are even higher, and many folks I’ve talked to don’t find it to be a very good phone.

So, keeping my current phone and buying an iPod touch seemed like a good compromise. I can get good Wi-Fi coverage in most areas where I live, so I’ll be able to go online, even without the phone function.

Many of my WWD colleagues already have iPhones. Aliza has recently written about good apps for web workers. Dawn’s shared her favorites, too. But with the holidays coming up, here are some of my ideas for apps to put on that brand-new iPhone or iPod touch:

Communication

• eBuddy. A multi-service instant message client for MSN/Windows Live (s msft), AIM, Yahoo (s yhoo), Gtalk (s goog), ICQ, Facebook Chat and MySpace Chat. Supports multiple accounts on the same service. Versions for web, Android and other platforms also available. Free.
• Facebook. A well-designed way for Facebook users to keep up with their friends while on the road. The app has had its issues, but they are apparently fixed now. Free.
• Gist. Scott and I have both found Gist useful, and the Gist iPhone app does a pretty good job of presenting a lot of information in a small space. Free.
• LinkedIn. This app keeps LinkedIn users, er, “linked in” from their iPhones and iPod touches. The latest upgrade adds some nice features, including an inbox for LinkedIn messages. Free.
• Nimbuzz. You can use this app to make inexpensive international calls over Wi-Fi. The app also includes a chat function, but it’s pretty rudimentary compared to eBuddy. Free app; rates for calls vary.
• RingCentral. If you’re a RingCentral user, you can use this app to manage your phone messages and more. Free for RingCentral users.
• Tweetie. There are lots of Twitter apps, but so far, I like Tweetie the best. It has a clean interface, and supports multiple Twitter accounts. Thanks for the tip, Darrell! $2.99.
• Waveboard. Mobile access to Google Wave. Will hopes for better access soon; I imagine that this app will become more sophisticated as Wave does. $0.99.

File and Idea Management

• Dropbox. This app is another reason to love Dropbox, which many of us at WWD do. As one would expect from Dropbox, it just works. Free.
• Evernote. My colleagues at WWD like Evernote, too, and I’ve finally seen the light. It’s a great replacement for PhatNotes, which I used to use with various Palm (s palm) products. (The Palm versions are apparently no longer available.) Free.

News

• Reeder. A very nice and elegant RSS reader that syncs with Google Reader. $0.99.

Just about every news source also has its own iPhone/iPod touch app these days. So far, I’ve been impressed with the ones from NPR and from some news outlets that have used the PodCurry platform.

Password Management

• 1Password. Manage and sync passwords. I’ve been playing with the brand-new version 3, and it’s good enough that I’ve moved from SplashID after many years. Use Dropbox with 1Password to make your password data available on multiple machines. $7.99.
• LastPass. Manage and sync passwords across multiple machines. The Firefox add-on for this service was included in WWD’s Add-Ons Collection. Apps for iPhones and other mobile devices available with premium membership, $12/year.

I’ve barely begun finding fun stuff, but I think I’m off to a good start with the Google Earth app, and TriPeaks Lite. I’m sure that I’ll find more, but I really need to get back to work now. Happy holidays!

What iPhone or iPod touch apps would you recommend for new users?

Yeah, I think I fell behind a little on that Google Reader experiment I tried earlier in the month. Maybe I can get this cleared by the end of the week. Or maybe I’ll just hit ‘read all’ and start over.

Anyone out there have good system of keeping track of their news reader on a regular basis? I always seem to forget to check it.

A cena não é difícil de imaginar: na tela do computador de um jornalista – seja de impresso, online, TV ou rádio – as abas na barra inferior se multiplicam. E-mails pessoais e profissionais, sistemas operacionais do veículo para qual ele(a) trabalha e, principalmente, sites de notícias. A tecla F5 do PC e o botão “atualizar” do browser são acionados dezenas de vezes durante um turno de trabalho. Isso ocorre porque o profissional tem ânsia de se manter atualizado sobre o que acontece naquele instante. E não poderia ser diferente. Mas é ou não é enlouquecedor?

A saída encontrada pelos jornalistas e também por quem tem vontade ou necessidade de estar sempre a par das notícias são os sistemas de atualização de páginas. Um nome comprido que define sistemas conhecidos por muita gente: RSS, Google Reader, entre outros.

O ícone do RSS está presente na grande maioria dos sites de notícias. Significa “Real Simple Syndication” ou Distribuição Realmente Simples. A lógica é fácil de entender: cada vez que um determinado website atualiza o conteúdo, o sistema emite um alerta de que há algo de novo por lá. Para acompanhar as atualizações, basta baixar de forma gratuita algum programa que vai “ler” o RSS. As opções são variadas: NetNewsWire, FeedDemon, FeedReader, etc.

A vantagem desses leitores é que parte das atualizações dos sites fica disponível para o usuário mesmo se ele não estiver conectado à internet. Em contrapartida, a pessoa só pode acessar o conteúdo se estiver usando o computador onde o programa for instalado. Não há a possibilidade, pelo menos no programa testado pelo blog – o FeedDemon –, de ter acesso ao material de outra máquina sem que seja necessário baixá-lo.

De olho nessa desvantagem dos programas leitores de RSS foi que, em 2005, a Google criou o Google Reader, que segue o mesmo princípio. A diferença é que o usuário pode ter acesso às atualizações dos sites previamente cadastrados de qualquer computador. O que, por sua vez, pode ser considerado uma desvantagem em relação aos leitores de RSS que permitem que o internauta possa acessar parte do conteúdo a qualquer hora, mesmo estando offline.

Diferenças à parte, ambos – o Google Reader e os programas leitores de RSS – são rápidos e eficientes em disponibilizar para o usuário o material mais recente publicado pelos sites. Quase não existe diferença de tempo entre a atualização do Google Reader e do FeedDemon, por exemplo.

TWITTER – E embora não tenha sido criado com esse propósito específico, o badalado Twitter também é usado por jornalistas e profissionais que precisem estar atentos às notícias como uma espécie de RSS ou Google Reader. Grande parte dos portais de notícias “tuitam” as atualizações que fazem, embora não seja em tempo real como ocorre com os leitores de RSS e o Google Reader.

Apesar disso, o que se pode notar é que cada vez mais os especialistas em World Wide Web estão se dando conta que o usuário não tem mais tempo para acessar dezenas de sites para se manter informado. O usuário quer saber de tudo sem precisar usar muitas janelas do browser. E nesse sentido, opções não faltam!

My personal favorite is Google Reader. I also like BlogLines.

November 20th, 2009 | by Barb Dybwad

Each Friday we choose a Lunchtime Polltopic to get a sense of how Mashable readers feel about the chosen topic of the week. Below are the results from last Friday’s poll, where we asked for your favorite news reader.

Is your favorite app or service not represented in the list? Let us know in the comments! And to make sure your vote counts next time, be sure to vote in this week’s Lunchtime Poll, where we want to know your favorite video-sharing service.

A surprising number of readers in the top 10 were Mac apps, and enough of you said you’d switched to using Twitter as your primary news source to propel it to #5. Google Reader was far and away the winner though, with over three times the number of votes for the 2nd place finisher Feedly.

Top 10 Mashable Reader News Readers

10. Reeder (iPhone) [warning: iTunes link]

9. Times (Mac)

8. Klipfolio

7. Shrook (Mac)

6. NetNewsWire (Mac)

5. Twitter

4. FeedDemon (Windows)

3. NetVibes

2. Feedly

1. Google Reader

I’m quickly developing some sort of “love affair” with RSS feeds and here is why. There is just so many darn things you can use them for and there are a couple of tools out there that help me to accomplish three of my major goals: my education; sharing great content with other folks through social media outlets like Twitter and FaceBook; and they are now allowing me the capability to further promote our groups, our members, and their companies. Sweet!

My Education: Whenever I encounter a site or a blog that I find interesting, I’m always looking for the “RSS Icon” as shown above. Click on that and I am immediately taken to a screen that allows me to automatically load this feed to my Google Reader. If you don’t see the icon, look for something that says “Subscribe” or words to that effect. Failing that, you can still try to manually feed the URL to your reader and see if it can find the feed from that address. I’d guess that this last-ditch method will work better than 50% of the time. Now that the feed is in your reader, you can peruse articles at your leisure and read the ones you find to be of interest. There are probably well over 500 such articles that go to my reader each day, perhaps closer to 1,000, and it takes me maybe 1/2 hour per day to sift through those. I also use a tool called ReadTwit that takes the links from Tweets of those that I follow and converts and loads them into my reader. In other words, that obscure shortened URL actually converts to something you can read and understand.

Share Content With Followers: From my Google Reader, once I have selected an article to read, I can also choose to send that article out via Twitter or post it to FaceBook. There are other sites that you can share it to as well. If this article was generated by a Tweet, I will typically follow that back to the person who sent the link and then RT (retweet) their update. The only shortcoming with using the reader interface is that it needs to be a separate action for each site you wish to share to. No biggie.

Now, let’s say that I find a site that consistently puts out quality articles. A site that I trust implicitly to be both professional and interesting. Enter Twitterfeed. Twitterfeed allows me to take any RSS feed and set up a system whereby the app will automatically scan each feed on a set schedule to look for new content. When it finds said new content, a tweet is automatically generated along with a content header and a link to that article. It’s a win-win. I am credited with generating and sharing good content and the person who wrote the article is promoted at the same time and it generates hits to his or her site. You can also add standard prefix and suffix language to the tweet not to exceed 20 characters per each. Got to love that!

Promote NetWorks! Boise, Our Members, and Their Companies: I used to have Twitterfeed scan this blog for new articles however, a few months ago WordPress.com added a “publish to Twitter” option that sends the article out immediately. And, I’m an “immediate” kind of guy so I took this off that service. However, I did create a new Twitterfeed account for NetWorks! Boise and added it to that. Follow me as I try to make sense of all of this for both you and me (smile).

NetWorks! Boise is committed to showcasing our members and their companies via any legitimate avenue that we can either find or create. This site, as well as our individual group sites, are examples of this commitment. Social Media is another tool that we have used on a limited basis to accomplish this goal. The goal being … push member information out. So, here are the steps being taken:

1. I have created a new Twitter account, @NetWorks_Boise, for this purpose. At least for now, this account is pretty much going to be fully automated.
2. I have encouraged the members to provide me with links to their, and their company’s, blogs and have been loading those into the new Twitterfeed account along with the feed for this blog.
3. At the same time, I have been also loading these feeds into my existing Twitterfeed account and the reason for that is .. right now @NetWorks_Boise has about a grand total of 5 followers (smile). Once the follower count rises to a reasonable level, I will likely remove these feeds from my main Twitterfeed account.
4. Each of the feeds is prefaced with the member company name or member name and has a suffix reading “NetWorks Boise Mbr”. Remember, a 20 character limitation for both the prefix and the suffix. We promote both the member and the group.
5. Guess what? Our dedicated group pages also have those cute little RSS icons on them. And even in multiple places (smile). I am testing these out now for one group and using two of the separate feeds available: events and group activity. Actually, I learned this trick from Jamie Morgan who runs NetworkInCDA up in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho who is also the individual who introduced me to the Ning platform that we are using. Thanks, Jamie! Follow her @jamiemorgancda. Very smart gal! The result of this will be that whenever new member activity is created on the site, a tweet goes out. Should a member post an event on the site, you guessed it, a tweet goes out.

I’m pretty pumped about all of this and can’t wait to monitor the results. I do know that our member blogs are already getting hits as a result of  this and that’s the goal that we hoped to achieve.

Hey, it’s a Saturday! Don’t say I never gave you anything! (smile). Thanks for visiting!

Craig

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When interviewing with agencies and new media teams, I’m constantly asked how the world of social media has impacted my life on both a professional and personal level. What have I learned from social media? Obviously, I’ve forever thankful to social media for teaching and continuing to teach me about the ever evolving advancements that can elevate the communications industry, but it’s mainly reinforced something that I already knew about myself:

“I understand technology, but I love people.”

I enjoy learning all about Twitter trends, Google Chrome extensions, Facebook apps all while clearing my Google Reader, but the reality is that I LOVE the conversation aspect. I love feeling connected with people, sharing our views and insights and learning about their experiences.

My mother views social media gurus as “computer nerds” who aren’t necessarily good at face-to-face connection, which I feel is a common misconception. Or is it?

Is it easier to connect with people through social media rather than in person? Do you feel less guarded communicating through an online social network?

Are there certain social media outlets that makes you feel more connected to people than others?

I have this “social butterfly” gene that pretty much makes it possible for me to talk to a brick wall. I don’t have ever freeze up or get uncomfortable in face-to-face conversations, but I could see how it could be easier for shy people to connect with others through a non-threatening social media outlet.

What do you think?

In my last post I mentioned a book I recently finished reading by digital marketing expert Mitch Joel titled, “Six Pixels of Separation: Everyone Is Connected. Connect Your Business to Everyone.”

This fantastic book integrates digital marketing, social media, personal branding and entrepreneurship in a very clear and easy to understand way. A great read! Below is a list of 15 main points from the book that stood out to me. It was tough to choose which main points to include in my list so if you’ve read the book and think I missed one feel free to add to the list or submit your own list. I’d love to hear what other people took away from this great book.

15 Key highlights from “Six Pixels of Separation”

1. Trust + Community = ROI
ROI is now driven by how loyal and engaged your consumers are, especially when using online channels.

2. No one is “using” anymore. Everyone is creating.
There is no such thing as a “user” anymore. No one is “using” anything anymore.  They are creating. You are creating. It’s all about creating. Ex.) Facebook: Everyone creates their own experience through the many profile apps Facebook offers. Add your own pictures, create events, build pages, create groups, update your status, send people messages, online chat etc. They’re all centered around the idea of letting people create their own Facebook experience.

3. Embrace the “conversation”
Everyone is talking about starting, joining, or being a “conversation” in order to grow your business. New online media platforms such as blogs and Twitter all embrace the idea of conversation. Before choosing to use online channels you must embrace the conversation.

4. Human nature is about community.
It’s human nature to want to be part of a community. Online channels offer another community for people to participate and connect in. Start your own community and embrace your members.

5. What are people saying about you and your company?
6 free online tools to help you find out:
1. RSS readers (Google reader)
2. News Alerts (Google alerts)
3. Watchlists (Technorati)
4. Google blog search
5. Search Engines
6.  Google trends and Facebook Lexicon

6. Online communities = brand building power
You can’t have a strong business without a strong community so harness the power of online communities to build your business. NOW is the time to harness the power that lies in online communities!

7. Think ripples, not splashes.
Traditional advertising campaigns = big splash in a pool of water.
Splashes do work (when done right) but only for a limited time.
Using less energy you can throw small pebble (your idea) into the pool and let the ripple effect take hold. Ripples = powerful WOM conversations generated when you share your content online. In the digital world it’s a lot easier and less expensive to create a ripple than a splash.

8. “Great brands provoke people”
Don’t worry about controlling your brand. Focus on creating a great brand with a great message that resonates with consumers. Concentrate on connecting to your consumers and creating engaging brand experiences.

9. Make personal branding PERSONAL in a digital world
Online channels are used to connect, share, and grow and are a great way to build your personal brand. They can help you establish yourself and your company as a recognized industry authority. Online channels used towards building a global audience are creating new business models and new marketing campaigns that are targeted and relevant, and deliver tremendous ROI.

10. Quality NOT quantity
Attention does not equal trust. Trust is gained through good content, engaging participation on your part, and how you engage with your community. Be helpful. Be sincere. The long-term game of sustainability in the online channels is one of quality versus quantity.

11. Online credibility is EVERYTHING.
Very few brands are embracing the idea of creating credibility through the use of digital channels. Most look for quick fixes. (i.e. banner ads, 3rd party email lists, add anyone to Facebook, Twitter etc.) Ask your consumers for their thoughts, ideas and comments and then be proactive with their feedback in order to gain credibility.

12. Invest in creating great content
People want to work with a company that is seen and recognized as an industry leader. Investing in online channels can help your business create great content such as text, images, audio and video, which provide consumers with information that adds value to their lives, gives them things to think about and keeps them engaged with your brand much longer than a thirty-second t.v. commercial.

13. Embrace collaboration
Readily available, free and easy to use, online tools allow easy mass collaboration between you and your consumers. See and embrace collaboration with your consumers as a business opportunity, a business development strategy and part of your long-term growth.

14. Mobile marketing = huge business opportunities
In Mitch Joel’s own words, “Cellphones have become the personal remote control for our lives.” Mobile channels offer business opportunities to connect, share and grow with your costumers. Be a leader. Seize the opportunity before others in your industry do.

15. Everyone is connected. Connect your business to everyone.

If you’ve read the book I’d love to see your list of main points or hear your thoughts on the book. Hope to hear from you!

The only tech news that really matters today is…Google’s Chrome OS announcement.

What is it? Chrome OS is a light-weight operating system based off of Linux. The OS design ques are based off of those from Google’s Chrome web browser. Because of it’s Linux heritage, Chrome OS’s intent is to provide lightning fast boot-up times (often termed “instant-on”) and shut down times as well. We’re talking something less than 10 seconds.

After turn-on the computer will boot up the Chrome Browser – because most people think a computer is for one thing only: the internet. It will have all your favorite Google Apps. Everything is stored in the “cloud.” No hard drives. Is it safe? I’m not sold on it just yet. As someone who gets rather annoyed when gmail outages occur from time to time, Google needs to step it up if they really want the cloud to be considered a replacement for local storage.

Chrome OS will only be available on netbooks at first by mid-2010.

There’s no doubt that the world is moving rapidly toward a web only and online only world. Google just sees an opportunity to pioneer and spearhead the technology. I’m not surprised.

Still don’t get it? How’s a YouTube video to explain it all? Trust me, it helps!

This one walks your through the interface briefly.

Google System

I introduced a crash last night where if you start Speeed Reader with caching disabled, it crashes.  Well I fixed it.  Sorry

V0.93 – November 19, 2009

• Bug Fix: Crash when starting Speeed Reader with cachning disabled (introduced in v0.92)
• Bug Fix: Minor layout issues in the UI

http://eeenno.emuneee.com/SpeeedReader/download/SpeeedReader_093.cab

Curiositat: utilitzeu lector de feeds? quin?

kathimerini.gr | Οι 10 σημαντικότερες στιγμές του Ίντερνετ

Η ίδρυση της Wikipedia, η άνοδος του iPhone και η εκλογή του Αμερικανού προέδρου, Μπαράκ Ομπάμα, ήταν μεταξύ των δέκα στιγμών που άσκησαν τη μεγαλύτερη επιρροή στο Διαδίκτυο, σύμφωνα με τα ετήσια βραβεία Webby.

 

Αλλα γεγονότα που ξεχώρισαν στην απονομή της Διεθνούς Ακαδημίας Τεχνών και Επιστημών που απονέμει τα Webby από το 1996, ήταν οι εκλογές του 2009 στο Ιράν, όταν οι διαδηλωτές ανέδειξαν τη δύναμη του Twitter και άλλων κοινωνικών δικτύων στην αναμόρφωση της δημοκρατίας.[next]

kathimerini.gr | Ανακάμπτει στα προ κρίσης επίπεδα η China Mobile

Επιστροφή στα προ της κρίσης επίπεδα της επιχειρηματικής δραστηριότητας ανακοίνωσε ότι επέστρεψε η China Mobile, η μεγαλύτερη εταιρεία κινητής τηλεφωνίας στον κόσμο. Η εταιρεία είχε αντιμετωπίσει πτώση στις διεθνείς δραστηριότητές της, αλλά η συνολική κίνηση έχει ανακάμψει σε φυσιολογικά επίπεδα, όπως ανάφεραν στελέχη της.[next]

 

Η Google προωθεί τις επεκτάσεις του Chrome | PC Magazine

Η έκδοση beta του browser Chrome 4.0 αναμένεται να διατεθεί σε 20 μέρες περίπου και η Google κάνει ό,τι μπορεί να αυξήσει το ενδιαφέρον του κοινού για την επερχόμενη κυκλοφορία. Η τελευταία developer preview edition περιλαμβάνει στην αρχική οθόνη μια αναφορά σε ένα νέο site, το οποίο έχει ως αποκλειστικό περιεχόμενο τις επεκτάσεις [add-ons] για τον browser της Google.[next]

 

Το Wired ετοιμάζει ηλεκτρονική έκδοση για το Apple Tablet (χμ;) | Away.gr, ελληνικό online media για την τεχνολογία, τα games και την επιχειρηματικότητα

Αν πιστέψουμε τον Peter Kafka του AllthingsDigital, τότε το Wired όπως φαίνεται δουλεύει εντατικά τον τελευταίο καιρό για να ετοιμάσει μια ειδική ηλεκτρονική έκδοση του περιοδικού για το Apple Tablet. Το ίδιο δημοσίευμα μάλιστα αναφέρει πως, όπως πιστεύουν οι συντελεστές του περιοδικού, η συγκεκριμένη έκδοση θα είναι έτοιμη περί τα μέσα του 2010. Το θέμα όμως είναι πως αυτή τη στιγμή δεν υπάρχει… Apple Tablet. Παρά τις φήμες και τις εικόνες που θέλουν την Apple να ετοιμάζει το συγκεκριμένο προϊόν, μέχρι αυτή τη στιγμή δεν υπάρχει καμιά επίσημη ανακοίνωση που να επιβεβαιώνει το προϊόν, ενώ φυσικά δεν υπάρχουν στοιχεία και για το πότε θα είναι διαθέσιμο.[next]

 

v4.e-go.gr – Το Facebook «καρφώνει» τους αρραβωνιασμένους – τεχνολογια , internet

Αποκλείεται να μην προσέξετε ότι κάποιος φίλος σας αρραβωνιάστηκε αφού πλέον το Facebook έχει τον τρόπο του για να «βγάζει την είδηση στη φόρα».

 

Όταν κάποιος φίλος σας αλλάξει το status του σε «αρραβωνιασμένος» και υποδείξει στο Facebook ποιον αρραβωνιάστηκε, τότε το site αυτόματα ψάχνει τις φωτογραφίες του προφίλ και βρίσκει μια φωτογραφία όπου έχει γίνει tag ταυτόχρονα το νέο αρραβωνιασμένο ζευγάρι.[next]

Deal Hunter GR, Ο βασιλιάς των ευκαιριών | Techblog

Ο Deal Hunter GR, είναι ο εικονικός χαρακτήρας που δημιούργησε το eBay στο facebook, με σκοπό να ψάχνει και να εντοπίζει τις καλύτερες ευκαιρίες αγοράς τις οποίες μοιράζεται με τον κόσμο. Η καμπάνια αυτή έχει σχεδιαστεί για να δημιουργήσει ένα χώρο στον οποίο οι χρήστες του Διαδικτύου μπορούν να βρίσκουν και να μοιράζονται συμφέρουσες ευκαιρίες που εντοπίζονται είτε εντός είτε εκτός διαδικτύου. Ο στόχος είναι η δημιουργία μίας online κοινότητας με θέμα τις πραγματικές ευκαιρίες.[next]

 

Here’s the first of three posts based on the presentation I gave at WordCamp Victoria. You can  view my slides on SlideShare here.

This visual by Mark Smiciklas depicts the challenge we have in making sense of what is going on within the social media space. It points to the need for research strategies that enable us to listen and act on relevant signals in the sea of social media noise.

How to find material that will interest your readers, and organize it so you can access it when you need it:

Read, read, and read. Read posts by other writers who are interested in the same subject as you – whether that be urbanism, productivity, photography  or social media – whatever it is you’re blogging about. Read comments people have submitted. And also seek out different points of view.

You can find other blogs in your subject area through sites such as Alltop, Technorati, Google Blog Search and Loaded Web. (Tip: Some of these sites, such as Alltop and Loaded Web, will list your blog. Not automatic with Alltop, but make them a pitch.)

Subscribe to those blogs you like through a service such as Google Reader. The folks at Google make it super easy to add a subscription, find others you might like, star items, and share items you like with others. Other items such as Google Alerts and Flickr updates can come through your Google Reader account as well, so it’s all in one handy place.

Now that you’re reading your feeds each day, you’ll soon start accumulating some fabulous ideas for future posts. How to store them in a way that’s easy to access later? Set up an account with a social booking site such as Delicious.

Want to dig a bit deeper in the area of research? Check out KD Paine, Charlene Li and Angela Sinickas.  They are all tremendous reseachers and thought leaders.

And for fun, check out CEO Merrill Dubrow’s blog. Dubrow is president and CEO of MARC Research, a 100-person market research firm in Irving, Texas. In addition to standard web metrics, his staff measure the average length of comments (106 words), the total number of comments (1,700 in 18 months), and the number of people who have contributed more than four (115).

http://eeenno.emuneee.com/SpeeedReader/download/SpeeedReader_092.cab

Primarily a maintenance release (fixes for the following user and beta tester reported bugs):

Notice:  If you are having an issue logging in after trying Speeed Reader v0.92 please email me with the answers to the following questions:

• Type of non-alphabaetic/non-numeric characters in your username/password
• Country/Language you are using on your Windows Mobile device

I am trying to form some type of profile for users that are unable to login successfully.

In this blog post, I will be talking about RSS, as well as Google Reader

RSS: Even if you do not know what it is, you would probably have seen it before. It is that little button usually to the far right of your browser link. Yep, the orange one with the 3 curvy lines on it. That, is RSS.

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and what it does, is allow u to collate all the sites that u usually visit, plonk them into a place that allows u to see all the updates at once. (An example of such a place that allows u to view all the updates via RSS, is Google Reader)

Now the reason I left it so long before blogging about RSS is because I wanted to experience it first hand for myself, before giving a well thought out blog post about it. After about 1 full week of using Google Reader, I can say that it is definitely easy to use and extremely addictive!

How Google reader and RSS work together is simple. All I have to do is set up an account, go to the websites that I frequent, click on the RSS symbol and use my google reader to subscribe to the RSS. After that, everytime I log into my reader, I will be able to know which websites have their content updated.

Previously, I had to manually go to different websites to see if their content was updated and more often than not, they weren’t. Now, it is so much easier to just log into a single website and get all my content from there.

Another cool feature about Google Reader is the fact that everything is hosted online. This is a really convenient feature as I frequently change between the 2 laptops that I use and I don’t have to manually retype the addresses of the websites I want to visit.

If you do not have a Google Reader account, or know how to use RSS, I suggest u get started right away . I suggest u use RSS for

• News Websites
• Friend’s Blogs
• Forums of interest

Have fun!

Petit état de l’art de mes usages des outils dits 2.0

De plus en plus, sans m’en rendre compte, j’ai utilisé mon profil Facebook comme on peut utiliser un blog : faire état régulièrement de mes flâneries sur le réseau. Gros avantage de Facebook : savoir que je m’adressais au minimum à “mes amis”, mon réseau social constitué de personnes dont je connaissais le visage, et parfois, souvent, que j’avais rencontré dans la “vraie” vie ! Cela changeait des billets du blog qui devaient être lus – des statistiques l’attestant – des commentaires le démontrant… mais par qui ?

Anonyme blog et Facebook vivant… raison de son succès fulgurant ?

D’autres outils, je testais  : delicious,  machin + bidule, et twitter, évidemment et ses flux incessants… difficile à suivre, enfin, pour moi… difficile de concentrer mes tentatives de penser en 140 caractères, résumer en un message pertinent… Fils de discussion, morceaux de tchats… j’abandonnais, revenant de temps en temps sur twitter, pour voir, pour savoir quels étaient les sujets en discussion…

J’avais relié pourtant, j’ai toujours ce twitter relié avec mon compte Facebook et mon compte Friendfeed. Pour publier sur mon facebook au boulot bloqué par proxynator, je passais par twitter qui, sagement, allait parsemer mon profil.

Dans ce maëlstrom d’outils et de sites, j’en vins même à installer une plateforme de mutalisation de tout mes comptes et de tous ses outils, ne m’y retrouvant plus en définitive, tenant une liste infernale de mots de passe que j’oubliais implacablement. J’expérimentais alors Yoono… ce fût l’explosion… les informations du monde, les flux me parvenaient en permanence. Tel le trader qui regarde défiler les chiffres sans cesse changeants, les paroles de chacun arrivaient… Je n’arrivais plus à me concentrer sur ce que je faisais… parce qu’évidemment, les paroles qui émanaient de mes amis me distrayient, m’emmenaient vers d’autres pistes. Et petit à petit, les chemins enchevêtrés me firent perdre le nord.

Mince… Simplifions, me dis-je ?

Ah ce Facebook, tant décrié.  ;)      Facebook, pays des smyleys ; contrée des j’aime, j’aime plus. Bref, j’ai délaissé ce blog… infidèle. Pris par la facilité de recenser rapidement mes découvertes, je n’écrivais plus ici. Ai de nouveau envie d’écrire, de synthétiser toutes ces expériences hétéroclites.

Donc, voilà où j’en suis, aujourd’hui :

un Google reader, un agrégateur de flux RSS,  pour suivre l’actualité quotidiennement et faire une veille personnelle, même si ensuite, elle devient partagée (Chaque outil devenant dorénavant un réseau social) ;

un netvibes, d’abord privé puis public, pour une veille publique. Cette présentation sous forme de widgets que je trouve si pertinente pour présenter des fils d’Ariane de manière très graphique pour le grand public ;

un profil Facebook pour partager des découvertes au fil de l’eau, garder des contacts, prendre des nouvelles de ses amis, effectuer une veille publique avec et pour ses amis…

Un profil Facebook aussi pour mélanger des cercles d’amis disparates, mélanger les étiquettes qui finissent toujours par nous coller à la peau (geek, discothécaire, auteur de BD…) au lieu de voir la personne dans sa totalité ;

Un profil Facebook (même si il y a trois fois un profil facebook, je parle toujours du même et hop un smiley !) pour l’aspect “fan”. Quel fabuleux outil pour créer la page des amateurs d’un auteur… Travailler sur ces pages, comme si l’on créait une bibliographie exhaustive (réflexe ancestral du bibliothécaire – fichiers, listes – penser, classer, ordonner). Désirs de précisions…Otletiser ? Otletiser = vouloir, désirer, souhaiter ( !)… organiser tout le savoir du monde… ou du moins une partie…

Utilisation d’un blog pour causer des révolutions de notre profession et d’autres blogs pour parler de ses passions artitistiques, littéraires…

Participer à des aventures collectives comme Wikipédia…ou Babelio

Lire des oeuvres contemporaines et d’emblée numériques sur publie.net

Et, besoin vital, dans ce dédale foisonnant et passionnant, de relire aussi, en plus des blogs, les classiques de notre profession pour imaginer un nouveau modèle de bibliothèque : hybride ou pas. Lire Eugène Morel, des histoires de bibliothèques, des cercles de la librairie, pour se confronter à ce qui se passe en ce moment, ici et maintenant…

Ecrire sous son nom propre ou avec un  pseudo… sans désir aucun d’égotisme… juste le souhait de partager, de dire, de demander : et vous, et vous, qu’est-ce que vous en pensez ?

Et vous, où en êtes vous avec ses outils dits 2.0 ? Vos veilles ? Vos désirs de bibliothèques ?

Bien à vous,

à suivre, donc…

Silence

Maj. Kristi Beckman is the Chief of Social Media for European Command Public Affairs

As Government 2.0 booms and social media grabs at us public affairs professionals in the military, we are having a blast branching out in ways we never have before. We are Tweeting, Flickring, Youtubing, Facebooking and blogging!

And the great part of all of it is the relationships we’re building and the ideas we’re sharing.

Today, the EUCOM social media team met with the Mercedes-Benz Germany social media folks. They are fantastic people in the same business we’re in of communicating with people on a global scale. And surprisingly they have a lot of the same issues we have in engaging in the social media realm. This is all part of the relationship building that makes social media so successful.

We want to branch out to more folks and share social media tactics, gripes, concerns, best practices, what-have-you.  So, here’s my first step to sharing:

THREE KEY STEPS to Properly Applying Social Media

(DISCLAIMER: I AM NOT A SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT! Not sure there’s such a thing yet. If there is, it’s not me. But I’m learning what works for me, so here goes.)

1) LISTEN+RESPOND=I CARE – What I’ve found MOST important in social media is not just getting out there and putting your brand out there, but you have to LISTEN to what people are saying about your brand and RESPOND back to them. I don’t care if it’s good or bad, respond! This shows people that you care about their thoughts and you’re not just blasting info out there.

2) FIND BLOGS+COMMENT=RELATIONSHIPS – Seek out blogs that matter to you and establish relationships. Yes, we’re in a new era of the information comes to you, but that won’t happen unless you find those good blogs and set up your RSS feeds. Find a platform you like, I use Google Reader, and start following people. Listen to them and comment on their blog postings. You’ll be surprised how good it makes people feel to know they are being heard and that their content is important to someone!

3) NETWORK+SHARE=COMMON SENSE – Like I said, I am not an expert in this arena and not many folks are. But if we all share the love and grow together, think about how much more we can accomplish. Insert peace sign here ) I see this happen all the time on Twitter as folks retweet the latest social media craze. So, keep it up! I will be!

I’ll be sharing more tips as there are so many more, but this will do for now. I’m sure a lot of you have some great ideas out there, so feel free to share with me as well! Thanks for reading!

Gloymar’s, I am with you..  When we were asked for our thoughts about social media so far, I gave pause to the many terms, tools, and discoveries that we have learned over the course of the semester.

Before social media class, I am not sure how I would have defined the term “long-tail”. 

I am certain that I would not have thought of it as a retailing concept describing the niche strategy of selling a large number of unique items in relatively small quantities, but now thanks to social media class and Chris Anderson, its people like me who continue to give credence and validity to the long tail concept.  Thus, I am not a shopaholic.  From here on out, I am going to affectionately refer to myself as a constant connoisseur of online vendors like Ebay.com, Amazon.com, Netflix.com, and more. 

Can we talk about Google Reader?  The thought of knowing all of the websites that I visit on a daily basis are being streamed into one big database, and none of  my nosy colleagues can see what I am looking at–talk about online heaven. 

Let’s not forget about blogs. There is something really liberating about writing a blog.   While sort of like a diary, to me a blog is a less restrictive and a lot more inviting.  A traditional diary is usually kept under lock and key for your eyes only, but a blog provides a platform to let it all hangout.  Moreover, it invites comments.  Not that I really want to go back and forth with someone in the blogosphere, but there is sense of community so why not?  I just have to remember to link, link, and link some more if I want to drive traffic.

Now, my social media favorite is Wikipedia.  Wikipedia is the online encyclopedia where I can learn everything about almost anything.  Yes, I have to remember that it’s a crowd-sourced tool and that everyone has access it, and I can’t refer to it as the gospel truth, but it’s informative and feeds my curiosity. 

Ahh, good old social media.  Glorymar, what did we do before it?