Business communications are becoming increasingly complex and require workers to manage multiple devices, applications  and face-to-face interactions in an attempt to stay productively connected with one another… (more)

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?

Al giorno d’oggi abbiamo mille mila account di posta… di instant messaging e chi più chi meno siamo sui vari LinkedIn e Facebook… un gran casino tenere tutto sott’occhio…

Io tra MSN, ICQ, Skype, MSN, YahooMessenger dovrei tenere aperti 5 programmi… per non parlare della mail personale, quella del blog, LinkedIn e Facebook… ‘na faticaccia no?

Ed ecco che l’altro giorno “scopro” Digsby… mi “controlla” le varie mail e funge da IM multiprotocollo per i vari programmi di IM (eccetto Skype… almeno per ora)…

…poi controlla LinkedIn e facebook e un po’ di altre cose che non necessariamente utilizzo…

Comodissimo per i vari popup di avviso dei messaggi ma anche dei cambi di stato di FB o di nuovo foto inserite dai contatti…

La feature mooooolto comoda è che una volta installato su un PC e creato l’account su Digsby (a cui associare tutti gli altri) se per esempio sono in giro con il portatile ed installo Digsby lì… TAAAAAC automaticamente prende tutte le impostazioni che avevo già impostato sul PC di casa… in questo modo uno non si deve nemmeno più preoccupare di ricordarsi 10k password… ne basta una… uella di Digsby!

Personalmente mi son trovato a disabilitare un po’ di funzioni che risultavano “leggermente” invasive durante l’utilizzo normale: ridotto all’osso i popup e gli avvisi sonori in pratica] ma devo dire che sono rimasto piacevolmente impressionato dal programmino… Bhé provatelo anche voi no?

LINK

• Digsby – Sito Ufficiale

• Disgby – The Community

Visando competir diretamente com o Microsoft Windows Seven no segmento de netbooks, o Google desenvolveu um sistema operacional em nuvem a partir do navegador Chrome.

A idéia é abolir quase todo o sistema operacional embarcado, oferecendo um tempo de inicialização de aproximadamente sete segundos, deixando apenas as ferramentas para ligar o equipamento e entrar na internet. Todo o resto estará disponível na rede, através dos servidores do Google. A única tela que o usuário terá é a do navegador Chrome. Na internet ele terá aplicativos de escritório baseados no Google Apps, visualizadores de vídeo e som,baseados no Youtube, e-mail e mensageiro instantâneo baseados no gmail e no Google Talk, entre outros aplicativos. Com isso, segundo o Google, não seria necessário mais programas acessórios, como antivirus, firewall, aplicativos de escritório, etc. O custo do sistema operacional seria irrisório e o usuário teria seu ambiente de trabalho e de diversão na web.

Quanto às críticas de manter os documentos das pessoas na web, existirá a opção de manter documentos localmente, com edição na web.

Abaixo, dois vídeos explicando o conceito e demonstrando a utilização. Por enquanto, apenas em inglês:

AV Voice Changer Software from version 7.0 has a built-in virtual audio driver (VCS VAD) which can work as a real audio driver. All instant messenger with voice applications can detect the AV virtual audio driver automatically. By changing the audio settings of those applications, AV Voice Changer Software will be the main voice processor for them.

Google Talk is a free Windows and web-based application for instant messaging and voice over internet protocol (VOIP), offered by Google Inc. The Google Talk client offers a wide range of communication services:
Instant messaging, free PC-to-PC voice chat, sending and receiving voicemails, etc. It is available for Microsoft Windows (2000, XP, Server 2003, and Vista) and also for mobiles as the Blackberry, iPhone and T-Mobile G1.
In this tutorial, we will guide you through the way to set up Voice Changer Software 7.0 to automatically change voice for voice communication via Google Talk.

With other voice chat applications, apply the same process to set VCS 7.0 as your main voice processing program.

» Notes:
This tutorial is applicable for AV Voice Changer Software new version 7.0 only.
This tutorial is applicable for all editions of Voice Changer Software 7.0.
This tutorial was illustrated using Voice Changer Software Diamond 7.0 in Vista7 skin (VCS7 in short) and Google Talk.
Users should have known how to change voice using Voice Morpher feature, and other voice changing features of VCS

Step to take

Step 1 – Switch VCS7 to VAD mode

On VCS7 main panel, click Preferences to open the Preferences dialog box.

Fig 1 – Open VCS7 Preferences [main panel]

In the Preferences dialog box, we will change Hook mode to Virtual Audio Driver mode.
- Check VadMode (1).
- Click the OK button (2) to apply the new settings and close the Preferences dialog box.

Fig 2 – Change from Hook mode to Virtual Audio Driver (VAD) mode [Preferences dialog box]

Step 2 – Change the audio settings of Google Talk

- Run Google Talk, log in your account.
- Choose menu Settings.

Fig 3 - Choose Settings to open the settings dialog box of Google Talk

In the Settings dialog box:
- Select Audio (1) from the left list.
- Locate the Microphone field; from the dropdown list choose AVnex Virtual Audio (2).
- Click OK.
From now on, VCS Virtual Audio Driver will be the main audio driver used by Google Talk.

Fig 4 - Change the audio device of Google Talk into AVnex Virtual Audio

Step 3 – Prepare the voice with VCS7

Return to VCS7, choose the morphing effects for your voice, and make adjustments until you are satisfied with the output voice.
Note: You should have known:
• How to change voice using Voice Morpher feature:
http://mp3-player.audio4fun.com/tutorials/voice-changer-tutorial10.htm
• Other voice changing features of VCS:
http://mp3-player.audio4fun.com/tutorials-voice-changer.htm
Step 4 – Start voice conversation with your friends via Google Talk with the changed voice

Get back to Google Talk and start voice chat or voice call. The morphed voice will be applied automatically.
Note: While VCS Virtual Audio Driver is being set as the audio driver for Google Talk, do NOT turn off VCS7 when doing voice chat via Google Talk. If you don’t want to use VCS7, change the audio settings of Google Talk back to normal audio source.
For more information on Google Talk, visit http://www.google.com/talk/about.html.

By audio4fun.com

http://www.scribd.com/

Let’s just say I’m a Google fan. I’ve been using their search engine since the late nineties – their early stages – and, of late, I have been keeping track of their latest projects. So when they came last Monday for a short talk, of course I had to attend it. Besides, it’s not every day that we mere mortals get a chance to hear from the bright minds working in a company like Google, thus it was an opportunity to gain some insights from them.

Social Trends

Their first topic is about social web trends. I have to admit, it wasn’t something that I was expecting to hear from them. I thought Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, or even Friendster would be a more appropriate purveyor of this matter. Well, that was before I heard Mr. Mickey Kim’s talk. He mentioned three trends, the first of which was already enough to dispel my personal notions about social computing.

Trend 1: Social is Everywhere. Within the confines of social networking websites, which is where I spend majority of my surfing time, this trend is not easy to see as our concept of online societies tend to mimic the limited user experience provided by these websites. But as the speaker pointed out, there are several other tools out there that demonstrate the power of the social web.

YouTube, for one, doesn’t exactly meet the description of what we generally perceive as a social networking website. Yet it is a community of viewers that is large enough to influence even the dynamics of real world issues. For example, Mr. Kim mentioned the story of man named Dave Carroll who got an undesirable treatment from United Airlines (I’m not sure if they broke his guitar before or during his flight). In response, he made a song condemning United Airlines and posted it on YouTube. The result? United Airlines, as we were told, got their earnings shaved by a substantial amount. So they had no choice but to make a public apology.

The Obama campaign is also an example of the social web in action. I myself was able to follow this closely as I was home-based during this period. True enough, Obama was all over the Web. Webcasts, blogs, forums, and social networks were all filled with his campaign materials. Of course, we know how story this ended. Imagine, social web had its contribution – which I assume is not small – in making a landmark event possible.

Mr. Kim also mentioned journalism as a beneficiary of the social web. To be exact, he mentioned the citizen journalism in Iran. This is also very much true in our country, which is no stranger to citizen journalism due to its frequent bout with tragedies. In effect, the Web has become an additional medium for journalists.

Trend 2: Social Applications. In this segment, social networks were described as a park: the more facilities that you provide, the more people will come. These days, social networks are a dime a dozen, so each one of them have to come up with their own enticing features to acquire their own market share. In response to the growing need of coming up with all sorts of social applications, the social networking giants, including Google, collaborated to come up with the OpenSocial project.

I used to think that OpenSocial is a set of standards that define what features should appear in a social networking website so user experience would be similar across different platforms. But Mr. Kim clarified that it is actually a framework for creating social apps. He said that the current version is stable enough that most of the popular social networking websites have already adopted this. Surprisingly, this doesn’t include Facebook. Will this be the path that will lead them to obscurity? We’ll see!

Trend 3: New Ecosystem. Two things were pointed out related to this trend: new distribution models and new monetization models. The social web allows content providers new means for distributing their content. Before, it was the consumers who had to search for their needs. These days, some of them go straight into your Web account, though the same is true for content that are useless to us.

The new monetization models, on the other hand, allow new methods for earning online. At first, this part of the talk seemed funny. Mr. Kim was talking about the virtual economy provided by Facebook’s game apps. You know, those that involve virtual money to buy virtual products and services. But when he started mentioning the real cash people bring in to enhance their gaming experience, it sounded serious business. This is just one of the many monetization models provided by the social web. Let’s not forget about Google’s AdSense which helps website owners earn from their site visits.

Open Source

The second topic, presented by Ms. Christine Songco, is even more surprising to hear from Google. She said that when Google was just starting, they were running on multiple platforms. Now, they are using Linux and other Open Source Software (OSS). I know OSS are good and reliable, but why use freeware when you have billions of dollars at your disposal for purchasing commercial enterprise solutions? Well, Ms. Christine gave simple answers that really made sense: control and ownership, and adaptability and flexibility (the third reason, roots, wasn’t expounded). All of these tantamount to being in total control of how your software behaves. If Google wants something new from their software, they can get it right away by tweaking their codes directly. The same cannot be said about proprietary software products which only give you a predefined set of functionalities that you will have to adapt to. In case you need new features, you’ll have to wait for the next version, and you wouldn’t be even sure you’ll be getting what you need. Also, your ability to integrate with other third party software is dictated by manufacturers.

Google’s relationship with Open Source is not only limited by their use of it, they are also promoters of it. In fact, Ms. Christine said that, if my memory serves me correct, Google has a hand on many open source license specifications and other open source projects. It’s nice to hear, especially since it’s coming from one of the world’s top software companies.

Стараниями оператора Orange в Польшу впервые приходит сервис Nokia Messaging. Услуги в рамках этого сервиса доступны уже с 17 ноября.

Первый месяц использования Nokia Messaging является бесплатным. Затем размер ежемесячной платы составит 19,90 злотых (порядка 200 рублей).

Сервис Nokia Messaging представляет собой решение для мобильного доступа к персональной электронной почте и обмена мгновенными сообщениями на устройствах Nokia. Nokia Messaging обеспечивает пользователям большинства устройств Nokia доступ к электронной почте, учетным записям Yahoo! Mail и Yahoo! Messenger, Windows Live Hotmail, Gmail и Google Talk, AOL Mail и тысячам других почтовых сервисов.

Источник: paperpage.ru

Last Monday (November 16), two talks by Google’s Mickey Kim and Christine Songco were held at the Vidal Tan Hall in UP Diliman. Mickey Kim, Business Development Manager at Google, talked about social web trends and the current related technologies, while Christine Songco, Technical Program Manager, talked about Google and their use of Open source.

on Social Web Trends

There’s a particular slide that caught my interest in Mickey Kim’s presentation. It says , The Web is more Social than ever. Why?

- 2/3 of the global internet population visit social networks

- Social sites are more popular than emails

- Time spent on social networks accounts for 10% of all internet time

- 100 million videos are viewed per day on YouTube

- 1.6 billion photos on Flickr

- 3 million tweets per day on Twitter

- 1 billion content per week are shared on Facebook

Even without the numbers, most of us will probably agree that today’s Web really is much more social than ever. Around 5-6 years ago, I can live without Friendster. I can even live without Internet. Now, I feel like I’m missing out on a lot of  things (even the local news) if I don’t have Facebook, Twitter, or Multiply. When I catch friends talking about the latest cute video on Youtube, and I ask where they found it, they’d simply say “Facebook, where else?”. For me, the numbers are overwhelming, but not really shocking.

There are three main trends discussed in Mickey Kim’s talk. Number one, Social is everywhere. Basically, almost everything on the Web nowadays is social. Information is social, collaboration is social, sharing is social, and even updates are social. In fact, it is almost impossible to see the Web as something that is not social, since most people go on the Internet to connect and interact with other people. It’s not fun to create a blog when no one will read your content. Even documents have become social with Google Docs. In Gmail, tiered replies and threads have made e-mail communication much easier to manage, and much easier for people to keep track of their conversations. And it’s not just the Web, Mobile can also be social. You can post updates, blog and almost do the same things you’re doing on the Web with your mobile phone.

Social Network is like a park

Number two, Social Network is like a park. You can go inside a park and there are other people in it. You can go to places inside a park, walk around it and go to another place anytime. It’s similar in Facebook right? I usually just look at my news feed and the next thing I know I’m in Youtube or Tumblr. Because people always want to be connected, more and more social applications are created for various needs. For Google, there’s Google Latitude, Google Maps, Google Friend Connect, and more. Development of new social applications are also made easier with HTML5, because it is much more dynamic now than before. OpenSocial was also introduced, which is a common API that can be used to develop applications that can be integrated into social networking sites. It is a fast growing community, and examples of sites using OpenSocial are Orkut, LinkedIn, and Hi5.

Lastly, today’s Web is like a new ecosystem where everything works together. Before, you need to go to a specific website to access a certain content. If you want video, you can go to Youtube. Now, content is pushed to you via the social networking sites. Chat, video, music, photos, and microblogging are now on one single site, so the user wouldn’t have to search and go to different websites. Aside from this, distribution also spans across platforms. For example, Facebook can be accessed by mobile, Twitter updates can also be sent via the mobile phone. There is a virtual economy, with new monetization models on social application. While people get to enjoy virtual farming, or creating cafes and restaurants, developers get to earn real world money by letting people buy virtual coins and cash with real money. For those who cannot afford though, there are options for online surveys and offers which they can avail to earn virtual currency.

Although it is fun to connect with friends and colleagues, play with Farmville or Pet Society, it is also important to note that the Social Web gives us ordinary people the power of unlimited information. The social web gives us access to information we normally wouldn’t be able to easily find on regular media like televisions or newspapers. Today, there’s Citizen Journalism, where regular people can now participate actively in a particular news event by contributing their own videos and news that are independent from the large media networks. Because more people can be reached via the Social Web, more commercial products, and even politicians like Obama, are now marketing themselves through the Social Web.

on Google and Open Source

The talk by Christine Songco  (proudly Filipina ) is shorter than the first talk. She shared her “baby pics” of Google from the time they have to scour around for free computers up to the time they can manage a more organized set of servers for their services.

They had started with a chop suey of operating systems and regular PC-looking servers:

Baby Google

To customized messy racked servers using PC-class motherboards:

and finally to a more organized Enterprise-looking server systems:

Their current design still uses PC-class motherboards and they designed the system themselves (hardware and software). They now use Linux for their servers, and they even have a flavor of Ubuntu called Goobuntu. They are using Open Source for the development of their applications and services. Why open source? A lot of reasons were cited why developers are motivated by open source applications, some of them because of intellectual curiosity, skill building, work needs. For Google, they open their programs for other developers to be able to contribute to their applications and services (like Google wave), thus speeding up the development process, increasing productivity.

Google Code is the second largest repository of open source programs next to Sourceforge, which also supports different open source licenses (there are many open source licenses, LGPL, GPL, BSD to name a few). Other Open Source projects by Google cited by Christine Solangco are the Google Web Toolkit, Chromium and Android. At the end of her talk, she invited everyone to try to join the Google Summer of Code.

Although the talks were short, they were very informative. Looking at how we use the Internet now, I can’t help but feel that social computing has become really pervasive.

Press release:  Plantronics Savi Office Recognized for Unifying Voice Communications and Multimedia with Brilliant Audio Quality and One-Touch Simplicity

New York, New York – November 10, 2009 – Plantronics, Inc (NYSE: PLT), the world leader in communication headsets for over 48 years, today announced that the Savi™ Office Wireless Headset System has been named a Best of International CES Innovations 2010 Design and Engineering Awards Winner in the Headphones category. Products entered in this prestigious program are judged by an esteemed panel of independent industrial designers, engineers and members of the media to honor outstanding design and engineering in cutting-edge products across 36 product categories. 

Unified Communications Made Simple

Plantronics Savi Office is a multi-function wireless headset system for Unified Communications that enables calling from both desk phones and computer softphones (VoIP). Savi Office supports softphone applications from leading providers, including Avaya, Cisco, IBM, and Microsoft, and other popular services, such as Google Talk and Skype with high-end wideband audio. 

In addition to basic call switching, Savi Office delivers advanced call control that enables the audio from the desk phone and the computer to be put on hold, muted or mixed together for easy conferencing. The system supports leading multimedia players so users can also listen to music and videos without missing a call. Savi Office uses the DECT™ 6.0 voice-dedicated frequency, providing users 350-feet of range from the base. Savi Office features adaptive power, meaning the headset uses less battery power when it is closer to the base system. 

“Nearly 50 years of design and engineering innovations have gone into creating Savi Office,” said Elizabeth Bastiaanse Hamren, vice president of Product Marketing at Plantronics. “The CES Innovations Award further establishes that the distinctions between consumer and enterprise products are becoming increasingly blurred. Today’s workers demand business-class audio quality and reliability combined with the ease-of-use and styling of consumer devices.” 

CES Innovations Design and Engineering Awards

The prestigious Innovations Design and Engineering Awards have been recognizing achievements in product design and engineering since 1976. They are sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)^®, the producer of the International CES, the world’s largest consumer technology tradeshow, and endorsed by the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA), the voice of industrial design, committed to advancing the profession through education, information, community and advocacy. 

Plantronics Savi Office will be displayed at the 2010 International CES, which runs January 7-10, 2010 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The Innovations Design and Engineering Showcase will feature honorees by product category in the Grand Lobby of the Las Vegas Convention Center and will also be featured at CES Unveiled: The Official Press Event of the International CES on Tuesday, January 5. 

The Innovations entries are judged based on the following criteria:

Engineering qualities, based on technical specs and materials used

Aesthetic and design qualities, using photos provided

The product’s intended use/function and user value

Unique/novel features that consumers would find attractive

How the design and innovation of the product compares to other products in the marketplace 

Products chosen as an Innovations honoree reflect innovative design and engineering of the entries. Examples may include the first time various technologies are combined in a single product or dramatic enhancements to previous product designs. 

Innovations 2010 Design and Engineering honoree products are featured on www.CESweb.org/Innovations, which lists product categories, as well as each product name, manufacturer information, designer, description, photo and URL.

Dahsyatnya gempuran ponsel pintar Blackberry memang sulit dielakkan oleh siapapun. Ini disadari betul oleh Nokia, yang selama ini merajai penjualan ponsel di tanah air. Market share ponsel buatan Finlandia ini boleh saja terkikis, tapi semangat untuk bangkit dalam mempertahankan kehormatannya patut dihargai. Untuk menandingi kedigdayaan Blackberry, Nokia merilis seri terbarunya yaitu E72.

Berharap mengulang kesuksesan E71, dalam seri terbarunya itu Nokia terus memperkaya dengan fitur-fitur baru nan mutakhir. Hadir sebagai ponsel bisnis, E72 tampil elegan dan sarat teknologi. Didukung oleh OVI services, Nokia E72 memiliki berbagai feature untuk mendukung berbagai keperluan bisnis dan kerja. Juga tersedia dukungan corporate mail seperti Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes Traveller, dan simultan e-mail.

Untuk pertama kalinya, melalui gagdet ini pengguna dapat menciptakan account Instant Messaging langsung dari layar utamanya. Cukup hanya dengan memasukkan username dan password, pengguna E72 dapat terkoneksi ke account Instant Messaging favoritnya seperti Yahoo!Messenger, Google Talk, Ovi, Facebook dan sebagainya.

Tombol-tombol QWERTY-nya pun terasa lebih nyaman dipakai daripada tombol E71. Kamera yang terintegrasi di ponsel berharga 5 jutaan rupiah ini juga ada peningkatan dengan image capture mencapai 5 megapixels.

UbAcoach, de chat- en informatiedienst van de Universiteitsbibliotheek, is sinds gisteren bereikbaar via de netwerksite Facebook en via Google Talk en Yahoo! Messenger. Chatten via Live/MSN Messenger blijft ook mogelijk. Evenals via de site www.uba.uva.nl/ubacoach, waarop een chatvenster is ingericht en e-mailberichten kunnen worden verstuurd. Chatten kan zolang UbAcoach online is, dat is gewoonlijk op werkdagen van 9 tot 17 uur, maar soms ook in de avonduren of weekends. Of de dienst beschikbaar is wordt aangegeven op de website. Bij afwezigheid kan je altijd een berichtje achterlaten. Daarnaast is UbAcoach ook gewoon telefonisch te bereiken op 020-5252266 (van ma- t/m vrijdag, 9 tot 18 uur). Wie op Facebook vrienden wordt met UbAcoach krijgt er een extraatje bij: de ‘news feed’ van de UbA, met berichten over de nieuwste databases en internetbronnen, UbA-hulpprogramma’s en demo’s. Een aanrader dus!

Relationship building and networking are primary reasons why small business owners and entrepreneurs participate in social media. In fact, I recommend networking as an important source for motivation.

Over the past few months, I have been very active on Twitter

I’m sure that if you are active on Twitter, you would have exchanged a few replies or direct messages with other Twitter users or Tweeples .This is how you build the relationship. But how can you bring these relationships to the next level?

Organize Social Media Meetups

Social media meetups can be arranged based on geographical locations, niches that your connections are into or even held in line with a local event. Just like a normal networking event, you should get to know each other more, have a relaxing chat and if possible, help each other out with business.

Organize Social Media Events as Partners

Social media events here refer to something like a blog carnival or a Twitter chat sessions (examples are meetups). Organizing an event together allows you to uncover someone’s personality and working together will definitely enhance the possibility of both of you working with each other again.

Feature Connections to Your Community

A lot of people, or perhaps it’s just me :p , love to get themselves featured. Whether it is a #followfriday feature, it helps to improve the relationship and you might even get a reciprocal feature.

If you know someone that your community would definitely love to follow, featuring that person on your blog or in your tweets is also a move that adds value to your community.

Offer Your Help

Often times, people will have questions on certain issues that they will post it in their status updates. If you are able to provide an answer, go ahead. Other forms of help include donations, promotion (retweeting for Twitter), participate in an event, comment on a blog post and many more.

Personalized Messages

Sending out personalized messages via Twitter DM, Facebook message or email is always a good way to improve the relationships that you have made on social media platforms.

One tip to appear personal due to all those “made-to-be-personal” messages is to have someone’s first name in your message. This works great for Twitter as I don’t think any Twitter DM spam tools out there that can pull someone’s first name into the DMs they send out.

Also, be sure that you have had prior conversations before sending out a message like this because it can be very offensive for some people if you try to be sassy.

Phone and Instant Messaging

Bringing your conversations with a particular person onto private means will allow you to know more about him/her. Instant messaging platforms like Windows Live, AIM and Google Talk are tools that you can use to bring your social media friends closer to you.

What’s Your Tips on Social Media Relationship Building?

The above are just some ways that I can think of to bring social media relationship to the next level. I am sure that you can be innovative and figure out more that can suit your business.

If you have been very active on social media, what are some of the tips on relationship building that you would like to share?

Share your thoughts in the comments section below. Hearing from you is priceless

Seit geraumer Zeit verwende ich ja das T-Mobile G1 (aka HTC Dream) als privates Phone und habe daher schon einige Zeit mit Android verbracht.

Hier die Apps, die ich verwende:

• Vorinstallierte Android Apps: Google Maps (auch als Öffi- und Fußweg-Planer!), Kalender, Email, Gmail, SMS, Google Talk, Chrome (Browser, Facebook nur über Browser), Musik (da braucht man einen HW-Adapter für Klingenstecker), Kamera, YouTube
• Andere häufig benutze Apps vom Android Market: Twidroid (twitter), Netcounter (Datenverbrauch), Battery Graph (Akkuverbrauch), OI Dateimanager (File-Explorer), Close Everything (schließt offene Apps), OI Notepad, WeatherBug, OI Einkaufsliste, Skype Lite Beta, Greed (Feedreader), AndNav2! (Navigationssytem, vgl TomTom), Text-To-Speech Library Extended (braucht man für AndNav2!), barcoo (Barcode Scanner), qik (Video aufnehmen und gleich online stellen), Shazam (Erkennen von Musik vom Lautsprecher)
• Widgets (auf Home-Screen): Brightness Toggle Widget, Headset Toggle Widget, Kalender
• Spiele: Labyrinth Lite, Bubble Burst Lite, FML (Fuck My Life, lustige Geschichen), Pacman, Sudoku Free, Tic Tac Toe, Slide Puzzle, Android Space Invaders etc.
  Leider gibt es auf iPhone einige Spiele, die ich im Android vermisse, z.B. Fastlane, Pocket God, Vooch, Zooma, Stoneloops, Peggle.
• System Apps vom Android Market: Camcorder, Compass, Bubble, JF Updater (Updaten auf andere Android-Firmeware-Versionen, geht nur bei gerootetem Android), Metal Detector, mp3tagger, Taschenlampe, APNdroid (ein und ausschalten der gesamten Netzwerkverbindung, im Ausland sinnvoll), Phonalyzr (Grafische Darstellung der Verwendung)

Wem das nicht reicht, marc (aka murdelta) hat auch eine kleine Liste mit Apps geschrieben, die er am Android Market entdeckt hat.

T-Mobile Pulse

Die Firmware verhält sich beim T-Mobile Pulse im Vergleich zum G1 sehr ähnlich. Ein paar kleine Features sind dazugekommen und die Icons für die Applikationen sehen etwas anders aus, aber im Wesentlichen ist alles beim Alten, sodass ich mich gut zurecht gefunden habe.

Leider hat uns T-Mobile dieses mal für die T-Mobile Pulse Testaktion (bei der G1 Aktion schon) kein Screenshot-Tool zur Verfügung gestellt, deswegen muss ich leider auf die Bilchen von anderen verweisen (siehe links).

Die Hardware ist sehr ansprechend, erinnert stark an das iPhone, weil es auch so rund ist und das Display etwas größer ist als das vom G1. Vom Gewicht her dürfte es sehr gleich sein. Die Anwendungen reagieren schnell, so wie ich es von anderen Android Phones auch gewöhnt bin.

Mein Eindruck vom T-Mobile Pulse hat sich zu meinem letzten Beitrag allerdings nicht verändert: Die herausschiebbare Tastatur fehlt mir sehr!

Die Software der Onscreen-Tastatur kann zwar durch andere Apps ersetzt werden, aber mir gehen die Tasten wirklich ab, da ich bei der Tippgeschwindigkeit sicher auf ein Drittel herunter gebremst werde. Mein mittlerweile gut trainiertes 10-Finger-auf-2-Daumen-System im Querformat ist durch ständiges Vertippen unbrauchbar geworden und zur iPhone-mäßigen ein-Zeigefinger-Tipperin fehlt mir irgendwie die Geduld – vor allem, seit ich weiß, dass es auch anders geht.

Daher bleibe ich vorerst beim G1 und freue mich schon auf Motorola Droid, ein Android Phone mit Android 2.0 (aka Eclair) und herausschiebbarer Tastatur, das in einigen Monaten kommen soll.

Google akan berencana untuk
memperluas fitur Google talk.
dari sebuah video chat satu arah
atau dengan sesuatu yang
hanya digunakan untuk chatting
dengan seorang teman.menjadi
video chat konferensi Dengan
kata lain, lebih dari satu arah.
dan nantinya Google Talk (Gtalk)
akan tampak lebih profesional lagi Menurut laporan di SFGate;

“Ini [sekarang kemampuan Gmail]
adalah langkah pertama
yang jauh lebih luas kumpulan
fitur kami berharap untuk
menggulung selama enam sampai
12 bulan di sekitar video [dan
suara ] chat kemampuan.” kata
Rishi Chandra, seorang manajer
produk Google Apps.
“Ini kesempatan besar bagi
kita untuk mendorong bahwa
ruang bersama.”

tak jelas apakah google berencana
untuk mengintegrasikan video
conferencing dari marratech’S.
kita tunggu saja infonya kedepan.

For the first tutorial on Thursday, Ned taught us about Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which refers to the technologies used for transmitting voice communications over the internet. VoIP can turn internet communication from just plain instant messaging to instant videocalls, and now screen-sharing. Skype is an example of such a VoIP.

Free calls over the internet was something that I’ve never thought of before.  Not until I was in Year 1 and my project group mates suggested we Skype did I find out about it. That was in 2007, by the way.

Adding to the benefit of convenience, laptops these days even come equipped with little webcams installed. You don’t necessarily have to bring a webcam to attach it to your laptop, use the in-built one! This makes communication between people from different countries/states/provinces so much more easier. Meetings can be held online anytime, anywhere, which also means that you may have to get up really early for meetings if the other party is in a totally different timezone. =/

Skype may offer these benefits, but it still does not allow for multiple users to have video conversations.

That’s why Ned even introduced another website for us to make use of VoIP: MeBeam! There are many other websites that provide other alternatives: Gizmo Project, Google Talk, Jajah,VoIPBuster, etc.

We were having such fun doing this, even our lecturer Ms Kwa who still keeps denying the fun she had. By the way, this picture was taken by her, that’s why she’s not in it. =/

Too bad MeBeam doesn’t allow audio though. >.<

Its a pity that in Korea, only providers registered with the government are authorized to offer VoIP services. Korean VoIP services are generally metered and charged at rates similar to terrestrial calling, unlike many VoIP providers who offer flat rates. No wonder Mom hasn’t asked me about setting up Skype for her to talk to our relatives.

Reference

——————-

After all that, Kell presented on podcasting and taught us about the free software Audacity.

We downloaded it and tried tweaking the pitch and speed of the songs we chose. We also watched a short video clip of how Kell used the software for her GEMs module (podcasting). LOL I didn’t know this software was capable of doing all that. And its free too. No wonder podcasts

Kell shared with us these as well:

Podcasts are content that one chooses to create or download other podcasts to listen to. We can choose what we want to listen to on our music players. With podcasts you don’t have to wait to hear something that interests you. You choose what you want to listen to.

Essentially, a podcast is an audio file that is automatically received from the internet and then synced to your MP3 player. The files are received by subscribing to what’s called a podcast feed.

Just from reading these articles (referenced below) it seems like we’re not fully utilising the internet’s RSS and podcasting feeds at all. =/ Myself included.

Generally, I don’t listen to podcasts. I listen to live radio occasionally. For me, I prefer watching Youtube videos instead of listening to podcasts, because I have a personal preference for more “viewable” entertaiment. However, I am thinking of listening to podcasts of maybe, KBS or Arirang radio, if there are of course. Would have to go do some more research on this topic first!

Btw, a famous website that makes use of podcasts: The Mr Brown Show.

References:

http://www.mediacentre.bham.ac.uk/glossary.shtml

http://www.how-to-podcast-tutorial.com/what-is-a-podcast.htm

]]> http://virginonmedia.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/google-dashboard-now-you-can-find-out-what-data-this-corporate-giant-holds-on-you/ Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:07:08 +0000 stevevirgin http://virginonmedia.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/google-dashboard-now-you-can-find-out-what-data-this-corporate-giant-holds-on-you/

Google is addressing users’ privacy concerns with the launch of a new tool that will reveal the data stored in their Google accounts.

The instant messaging world should prepare for a major quake — thanks to Facebook, which seems to be all set to launch a new connection interface that would allow Facebook Chat to work with any kind of XMPP client.

The news of this development was first reported by Mickaël Rémond on the company blog of Process One, a Paris-based messaging startup. “It now seems the launch is close as the XMPP software stack has been deployed on chat.facebook.com,” writes Rémond, who is a leading expert on instant messaging and ejabberd and is an active member of the XMPP Standard Foundation.

About a year-and-a-half ago, Facebook had announced that it would build “a Jabber/XMPP interface for Facebook Chat” and that “users will be able to use Jabber/XMPP-based chat applications to connect to Facebook Chat to” communicate, check their friends’ profiles, and set their statuses.

Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol, or XMPP, has surely become the de facto standard for messaging and presence. After a big push from Google Talk, XMPP is going to get the next major push from Facebook. The world’s largest social-networking service, with over 350 million subscribers, is about to launch the XMPP connection interface. That will allow users to use Facebook Chat with any XMPP client — whether on the desktop or mobile. A good example of how this works is Adium, a popular open-source IM client that allows you to communicate with disparate IM networks. The latest version of Adium supports Facebook Chat.

Why is this news disruptive? Simple: Until now, in order to use Facebook Chat to communicate, one needed to be logged into the Facebook web site or mobile service. However, if the chat can be accessed on any device regardless of whether you are logged into Facebook’s web site, the usage of that IM is only going to increase. This would, in turn, mean tough times for older IM networks such as AOL’s AIM and Microsoft’s MSN.

To understand why independent Facebook Chat on the web (and on the wireless networks) is disruptive, just take a look at its amazing rise. It was prototyped in January 2007 at a Hackathon and become a real project in the fall of 2007 with four engineers. In April 2008, the service went live for consumers and was available to 70 million Facebook users at the time. As of September, nearly a billion user messages were being exchanged every day with 1GB traffic at its peak, according to a presentation made by the Facebook development team at a conference in Edinburgh in September.